Paulsen, Gary. The legend of Bass Reeves.PAULSEN, Gary. The legend of Bass Reeves Bass Reeves (July, 1838 - January, 1910) is thought by most to be one of the first Black Americans to receive a commission as a U.S. Deputy Marshal west of the Mississippi River. . Random House, Wendy Lamb. 160p. c2006. 0-385-74661-X. $15.99. (Lib. bdg: 0-385-90898-9. $17.99). JS Bass Reeves was a real-life African American African American Multiculture A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. See Race. marshal in the American West, a man known for bringing in the bad guys, including his own son. Little is known of how Reeves made his way from slavery into the annals of the Wild West, and so Paulsen creates for him a back-story of growing up on a ranch near Paris, Texas This article is about the city in Northeast Texas. For other uses, see Paris, Texas (disambiguation). Paris is a city located 98 miles (158 km) northeast of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex in Lamar County, Texas, in the United States. with his mother. They are slaves owned by a hard-drinking ranch owner at a time when the Alamo Alamo Eighteenth-century mission in San Antonio, Texas, site of a historic siege of a small group of Texans by a Mexican army (1836) during the Texas war for independence from Mexico. was attacked and the Comanche were raiding isolated ranches. Bass learns to use a gun to protect the ranch and learns to play cards to entertain his master. When his master tries to cheat him, he fights him and then must run for his life. He is free, with all the responsibility of finding food and shelter that freedom entails. The land Bass Reeves enters in 1840 is Indian Territory Indian Territory, in U.S. history, name applied to the country set aside for Native Americans by the Indian Intercourse Act (1834). In the 1820s, the federal government began moving the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw) of the , wild and lawless. Here, in what is now Oklahoma, he develops a relationship with an Indian family and begins his work in law enforcement. His is a fascinating story of what it took to survive in the American West. The violence is graphic, but even so this book will certainly work its way into school classrooms. Especially useful for teachers will be the introduction to the novel and the discussion of truth and legend that Paulsen presents there. Janis Flint-Ferguson, Assoc. Prof., English, Gordon College There are three colleges named Gordon College:
J--Recommended for junior high school students. The contents are of particular interest to young adolescents and their teachers. S--Recommended for senior high school students. |
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