#OTD in 1949, the first episode of The Lone Ranger premiered, starring Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels.

In this romanticized version of the Wild West, and what it meant to be a Texas Ranger, this ABC show teamed up a Native American named Tonto, and the Lone Ranger to defeat lawlessness.

While the television series does not credit any inspiration for the show, it is suspected that an escaped slave named Bass Reeves was the true “lone ranger.”

Following emancipation, Reeves worked with federal marshals and under the direction of a federal judge, brought in over 200 marshals to help calm the Wild West.

Biographer Art T. Burton, who first asserted that Reeves inspired the Lone Ranger, wrote that Reeves arrested over 3,000 people and killed 14 outlaws, all without sustaining a gunshot wound.

The erasure of Reeves from the history and lore of the Texas Rangers only continues to speak to the whitewashing of history to support a particular narrative. /6First episode of the Lone Ranger