America’s frontier days are little more than distant lore for a society that has become more accustomed to texting, streaming, and downloading as everyday activities. Even though it’s a part of this country’s history, it’s closer to fantasy than reality, but there is still an appetite for the history of people who lived in 19th century America.

The story of one of them, a U.S. Marshal named Bass Reeves, has hit Paramount+ as a new series, Lawmen: Bass Reeves, starring David Oyelowo in the titular role. The story follows Reeves from his days enslaved on a Texas plantation to becoming one of the most successful law enforcers of his day and the first Black person in his position to serve west of the Mississippi River.

Until recent interest in his story surfaced, his biography didn’t appear in most history textbooks, and most people had not heard of him. But his heroics were the stuff of legend and his legend was even said to have been the inspiration behind The Lone Ranger, which started out as a radio serial in the 1930s.

So who was he?

According to historical research, Reeves was born in 1838, in slavery, into the Arkansas household of William S. Reeves. In 1846, he moved his family to Paris, Texas, and when the Civil War broke out, Reeves ordered Bass to serve his son George as he joined the Confederate army.

But Bass escaped, fleeing into what is now Oklahoma and the lands ruled by five indigenous nations—the Cherokee, Seminole, Creek, Choctaw, and Chickasaw people—all of whom were forced from their ancestral lands during the “Trail of Tears” Indian Removal Act of 1830.

While in that part of the country, he learned the ways of those tribes and even adopted their languages. Eventually, after the Emancipation Proclamation was declared in 1865, he returned to Arkansas, married, and went on to have 11 children.

Meanwhile, the years after the Civil War opened up the American frontier to settlers, homesteaders, and explorers. But following them were outlaws, scofflaws, and desperados, scouring the land, robbing, and committing mayhem. Seriously, this isn’t a script based on an Old West movie with Ennio Moricone music playing in the background. This kind of thing really happened.

Noting that he would need as much help as he could get to round up these bad guys, U.S. Marshal James Fagan recruited Reeves among 200 deputy marshals to rein in criminals, particularly those who threatened the small towns and farms that dotted the landscape. The 75,000 square miles of what was then called “Indian Territory” was overrun with criminals and they were not subject to prosecution under the laws of the tribes since they were not members.

Reeves was one of the few Black people hired to be a part of the effort to capture them, but he proved to be the most proficient, with a near-perfect aim with a revolver and detective sense well beyond his time.

Biographers tell of a time he disguised himself as a vagrant and won an invitation into the home of the mother of two outlaws, only to surprise and arrest them. Another time he feigned injury after intentionally driving his horse-drawn wagon into a ditch. When a group of men came to help—the men he was after—he pulled out a shotgun and took them into custody.

All told, Reeves was said to have arrested some 3,000 suspects in 32 years as a lawman and killed 14 people. Eventually, he could not retain his job when Oklahoma became a state in 1907. At age 67, Reeves took a job as a police officer in Muskogee, Okla. However, his health began to fail and he died in 1910. It is unclear where he was buried, but he is thought to have been laid to rest in an African American cemetery in Muskogee.

Reeves legacy sounds much like anything Clint Eastwood would have portrayed, but frontier-era America really was rough terrain, with few resources, exposure to disease, rampant crime, and constant threats from the Native American lands that these new Americans increasingly encroached upon.

There is no definitive evidence to show that Reeves’ legend actually inspired The Lone Ranger, but he is one of a large number of Black people who went west after Emancipation to settle in these areas, run farms, and even help establish towns and enforce the law. Others who followed suit have had their names lost to history. But at least Reeves serves as an example of their bravery and tenacity.

“To me, Bass Reeves is the greatest frontier hero in American history—bar none,” historian Art T. Burton told Texas Monthly magazine in 2021. I don’t know who you could compare him to. This guy walked in the Valley of Death every day for thirty-two years and came out alive.”

Lawmen: Bass Reeves is currently streaming on Paramount+.