Weekday Devotion With Pastor Chris

In 1838, Bass Reeves was born into slavery in Crawford County, Arkansas.  He and his family were owned by a state legislator named William Steele Reeves.  When Reeves moved to Paris, Texas, eight years later, Bass was part of that move.  And when the Civil War broke out fifteen years after that, Bass was sent along to serve Reeves’ son, Colonel George Reeves, as part of the Confederate Army.

     At some point during the war, Bass escaped to Indian Territory; a region ruled by five Native American tribes in what today is Oklahoma.  He learned the customs and language of at least two of the tribes in the years that followed, but after the 13^th Amendment abolishing slavery was passed in 1865, Bass Reeves returned to Arkansas, where he married and began to raise a family.

     About ten years later, U.S. Marshal James Fagan heard about Reeve’s background and recruited him to be one of 200 deputy marshals brought in to calm a growing crisis in the Territory.  Countless outlaws had taken refuge there and were creating all kinds of chaos.  Bass Reeves, at  6 feet 2 inches, and with his knowledge of the terrain and language along with his shooting skills (acquired during the Civil War) was a natural choice.  He became the first black deputy U.S. marshal west of the Mississippi.

     Over the course of his career, Reeves earned a formidable reputation. He was fiercely dedicated to his position, and demonstrated extraordinary integrity throughout his years of service.  There was no way to shake him off, no way to bribe or compromise him.  At times he would disguise himself or create a backstory in order to get close enough to make an arrest.  Ultimately, he is said to have arrested more than 3,000 people and killed another 14 in duels, and all this without sustaining a single gun wound (although at different points both his hat and belt were hit).

     Reeves was removed from his position in 1907, when Oklahoma gained statehood. Under state law, an African-American was not allowed to serve as a deputy marshal.  He died three years later.  However, many of the fugitives that he had arrested were sent to the Detroit House of Corrections, and it is biographer Art T. Burton’s thesis that it was Reeves with his strong moral compass and countless adventures who served as the basis for the Lone Ranger; introduced to the world by a Detroit radio station in January of 1933.

     There is a heroic quality to Reeves’ story.  Others might have been embittered by the experience of slavery.  Who would have blamed them?  But somehow Reeves was able to rise above that.  He became a man of great personal integrity, committed to what was right and best even to the point of arresting his own son who had murdered his wife.  He made a difference in this world, and a difference in the lives of those who knew him.  Today, there is a wonderful statue of Bass Reeves in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

     It is tempting, sometimes, to throw up our hands in defeat.  There are days when it would be easy to feel stuck or defeated; held back by circumstance or by our past.  But the God we worship is One to whom all things are possible: the same God who brought the slaves out of Egypt; the same God who led them across the Red Sea; the same God who provided through forty years in the wilderness; and the same God who came to us in Jesus Christ.  Bass Reeves was able to break free from slavery and become a great hero of the West.  Who knows what we might accomplish as we place our lives in the hands of this loving and all-powerful God?

“I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.  Look to him, and be radiant, so your faces shall never be ashamed.  This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord, and was saved from every trouble.  The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.” (Psalm 34:4-7)