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DID YOU KNOW the characters in @Netflix’s western revenge tale #TheHarderTheyFall were based on actual figures from the old west? 🤠
👆 Check out this original art by Tumblr Creatr Patience Lekien based on the IRL Wylie Escoe!
While Wiley Escoe is the mayor of the all-Black settlement Douglastown in The Harder They Fall, in real life, he was one of several Black deputy U.S. marshals serving in the west following the Civil War. The nation’s oldest federal law enforcement agency, the U.S. Marshals Service was created in 1789. As the U.S. expanded westward, deputy marshals were appointed to serve the needs of the federal government. Then—and now—they were charged with protecting the federal judiciary, tracking and apprehending fugitives and managing seized assets. In fact, it was a Black marshal, Ike Rogers, who ultimately arrested Cherokee Bill in 1895.
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🎥 Watch The Harder They Fall, playing in select theaters on October 22 and on Netflix globally on November 3.
DID YOU KNOW the characters in @Netflix’s western revenge tale #TheHarderTheyFall were based on actual figures from the old west? 🤠
👆 Check out this original art by Tumblr Creatr Patience Lekien based on the IRL Bass Reeves!
Born into slavery in Arkansas, Bass Reeves escaped to Indian Territory after being forced to assist his enslaver during the Civil War. Officially freed by the 13th Amendment, he became one of the first U.S. deputy marshals west of the Mississippi River in 1875. For 32 years, he hunted down 3,000+ criminals—including white men charged with crimes against Black people, and once, his own son. A fearsome quick draw artist, Reeves routinely rounded up dozens of outlaws at a time. Many think he was the inspiration for the fictional Lone Ranger. Reeves was relieved of his duty in 1907, when the newly minted state of Oklahoma’s law made it illegal for Black men to serve.
(1838–1910)
🎥 Watch The Harder They Fall, playing in select theaters on October 22 and on Netflix globally on November 3.
DID YOU KNOW the characters in @Netflix’s western revenge tale #TheHarderTheyFall were based on actual figures from the old west? 🤠
👆 Check out this original art by Tumblr Creatr Nyanza D. based on the IRL Rufus Buck!
Rufus Buck, the son of a Black woman and a Muscogee (Creek Indian) man, wasted no time jumping into his vocation as an outlaw. He was just 18 when he led his five-person gang of young Black and Indigenous gunslingers on a 13-day violent crime spree. His goal was to trigger an uprising and reclaim the parts of Indian Territory that later became Oklahoma and Arkansas for the native people who had lived there for centuries. Ultimately unsuccessful and arrested for his crimes on 1895, the young outlaw was hanged a year later at Fort Smith in Arkansas.
(1877–1896)
🎥 Watch The Harder They Fall, playing in select theaters on October 22 and on Netflix globally on November 3.
DID YOU KNOW the characters in @Netflix’s western revenge tale #TheHarderTheyFall were based on actual figures from the old west? 🤠
👆 Check out this original art by Tumblr Creatr Nyanza D. based on the IRL Nat Love!
Nat Love is a vengeance seeking outlaw with a killer shot in The Harder They Fall, but the real life “Deadwood Dick” was just as famous for his roping and riding skills as for his steady shooting hand. Born to enslaved parents in Davidson County, Tennessee, Nat headed west after the Civil War to pursue his dreams of becoming a cowboy. He quickly succeeded in Dodge City, Kansas, where he was hired by a Texas-based cowboy outfit to herd horses and cattle. He became famous for his rodeo expertise, and his career was only bested by the advent of railroads; he spent his final days working as a Pullman Porter.
(1854–1921)
🎥 Watch The Harder They Fall, playing in select theaters on October 22 and on Netflix globally on November 3.
DID YOU KNOW the characters in @Netflix’s western revenge tale #TheHarderTheyFall were based on actual figures from the old west? 🤠
👆 Check out this original art by Tumblr Creatr Brianna Pippens based on the IRL Trudy Smith!
In The Harder They Fall, Trudy Smith is the treacherous, down for anything right-hand woman of outlaw Rufus Buck. In real life, Gertrude Smith was a legendary thief. But guns weren’t part of her MO; she preferred to help herself to the pockets of those around her. Based in San Francisco’s Barbary Coast, a red light district that was home to brothels, dance halls and concert saloons, she often partnered with the equally duplicitous Dolly Mickey. The pair eventually found themselves locked in the county jail for six months and fled the city after their release in 1906.
(unknown)
🎥 Watch The Harder They Fall, playing in select theaters on October 22 and on Netflix globally on November 3.
DID YOU KNOW the characters in @Netflix’s western revenge tale #TheHarderTheyFall were based on actual figures from the old west? 🤠
👆 Check out this original art by Tumblr Creatr Brianna Pippens based on the IRL Cuffee!
The Harder They Fall’s Cuffee wasn’t a real person, but she’s based on the very real, very badass, Cathay Williams. After being forced to serve as an Army cook and washerwoman during the Civil War, she posed as a man named William Cathay and enlisted in 1866, making her the first woman in the U.S. Army. She later said, “I wanted to make my own living.” A smallpox infection and subsequent hospitalizations revealed her gender and she was discharged. But that didn’t stop her from joining second 38th U.S. Infantry, one of six all-Black regiments in the Regular Army created following the war, cementing her as the first—and only—female Buffalo Soldier.
(1844–1893)
🎥 Watch The Harder They Fall, playing in select theaters on October 22 and on Netflix globally on November 3.