Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas where it is sunny and 68 degrees right now, or 20 C if you like.
Continuing with our series about Belle Starr, one of the West's colorful women bandits, yesterday we left off with her and her husband a running horse theft operation. I don't know how long they were running this thing before they got formally charged with theft but it was by a local white man living on the reservation.
Trouble with a local
The story is a long, involved one but basically what happened was she was riding in the reservation and her horse was sore so she "borrowed" another one. The other one was loose and looked good so she took it. When the owner found out about it she told him she would pay him for it but never did. That's the case in a nutshell.
So the horse's owner filed a charge against her and two deputies were assigned to go pick her up. It wasn't easy because they wanted to grab them on the road somewhere. They weren't going into Indian Territory with just the two of them. (People had a bad habit of never coming back after venturing into the Territory.)
After asking around and scouting around they got a lead on Belle's location and it was far from their home so it was a go for the attempt to capture them. They found them camped out, it was Sam, Belle, and a black child, don't know how old.
Belle and Sam are snatched
They got the drop on Sam and the kid when they took the horses down to the river to water them. Then they chained Sam up to a tree and told the kid to go tell Belle that Sam wanted her. They told the kid they'd kill him if he didn't do as he was told.
The kid went and told Belle and she came down the path to the river. Now, being a woman the deputies didn't want to get violent with her so each of them hid behind a tree on either side of the path and when she walked past they both jumped out and grabbed an arm.
In their report they said "she fought like a tiger and threatend to kill them both and she would have" but they were able to subdue and cuff her. She had a pistol on a belt and had two derringers hidden in "her bosom."
Her and Sam were taken to the Federal Courthouse in Fort Smith, Arkansas. It had a jail in the basement and that's where they were held:
The judge presiding over the trial was none other than the famous Judge Parker known as the "Hanging Judge." He was very strict to say the least, I mean this guy was tough! If you were brought before him on a count of murder or rape you were going to swing basically.
But he was surprisingly lenient with Sam and Belle, perhaps because she was a woman. They were found guilty of horse theft and he sentenced them to a one year term in the House of Corrections, Detroit, Michigan. With good behavior they could be out in 9 months.
I thought it was interesting to read an article by one of the newspapers who insulted the trash out of Belle. It was an article written by the Fort Smith New Era on Feb 22, 1882 and they gave a description of Belle in this way:
"As an equestrienne, Belle Starr is without rival, is said to be an expert marksman with the pistol, and while she could not be considered even a good looking woman, her appearance is of that kind as would be sure to attract the attention of wild and desperate characters."
It's amazing that people were always critizing her because she wasn't a beauty queen. They were shallow back then too! I think they did get lucky with that sentence though because Judge Parker was known for his harsh judegments.
Belle's story continues tomorrow with a very surprising stint in prison.
Thanks for reading folks!
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck
ps- ya know....you just might be a redneck if:
You consider a three piece suit to be: a pair of overalls, a plaid flannel shirt and thermal underwear!