Lindsey Graham
speaker
15,077 appearances
196 recordings
52 series
first heard Aug 2024
last heard 16 Sep
Lindsey Graham’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 120 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 36.
Appearances
And although Indian Territory had been set aside for displaced Native tribes, slavery was legal within its borders, and by the start of the Civil War, there were roughly 10,000 Black people enslaved there.
But ironically, Indian Territory also became a haven for fugitive slaves, because slaves owned by members of the Five Tribes retained more autonomy and faced less violence than those in the Southern states.
These conditions made for a less rigid racial order, one that attracted runaway slaves like Reeves.
Making the move easier for Reeves, the terrain of Indian Territory was already familiar to him.
He'd grown up nearby, across the Red River in northern Texas.
So after he fled George Reeves, he lived among the Creek and Seminole Indians and learned their languages and customs.
For former slaves like Reeves, Indian Territory, and the West more broadly, offered a unique opportunity for reinvention.
In 1864, Reeves, now 26 years old, married a 14-year-old named Jenny.
The couple started a family that would eventually include 11 children.
And with the end of the Civil War, Reeves gained his freedom, and he and his growing family settled on a farm near Van Buren, Arkansas, on the eastern border of Indian Territory.
Reeves soon began earning money as a scout and tracker, using the knowledge he'd gained while living among Native tribes.
He later boasted that he knew Indian Territory like a cook knows her kitchen.
But the Indian Territory Reeves knew so well was fast becoming one of the most lawless regions in America.
While Native tribes enforced their own laws with mounted forces known as the Light Horse Police, their jurisdictions were limited to their own people, a legal loophole that non-Indian lawbreakers exploited.
But one man resolved to rein in the chaos.
In March 1875, a hard-charging judge named Isaac Parker assumed the bench of the federal court at Fort Smith, Arkansas, just across the eastern border of Indian Territory.
More than 100 murders had been committed in Indian Territory during his predecessor's three-year tenure, and Parker was determined to restore law and order.
To that end, he set out to recruit 200 deputy U.S.
Marshals, though he only managed to convince 50 to enlist.
This small force would be tasked with curbing crime across 75,000 square miles of rugged frontier.
Showing 841–860 of 15,077 · page 43 of 754
← Previous
Next →