Perhaps the greatest lawman in American history was a Black Texan named Bass Reeves. After escaping slavery during the Civil War, Reeves served as a deputy U.S. marshal from 1875 to 1907, operating primarily in what was then the Indian Territory, a pitiless swath of land (today known as Oklahoma) that, in part, was a haven for some of the most dangerous criminals of the day. It was, as historian and Reeves biographer Art T. Burton has said, “the Valley of Death,” and a Black man in the postbellum South walked through it for more than three decades and came out alive. The legend of Reeves is built upon tales of near-flawless marksmanship with both revolver and rifle, his use of clever ruses and disguises…
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