The first time I learned of the outlaw Cherokee Bill was in The Adventures of the Negro Cowboys by Philip Durham and Everett L. Jones (Bantam Books). The paperback edition was published in 1969.
Years later while watching on DVD an episode from Season Five (1961-1962) of Have Gun Will Travel, Cherokee Bill's name was mentioned among the names of other outlaws by a character speaking to Paladin (played by Richard Boone). I replayed that part of the episode to confirm what I thought I heard. No further information about him was offered.
According to Durham and Jones, Cherokee Bill (1876-1896) "was part Indian, part Negro" and was "an outlaw who fascinated women, murdered countless men for fun and profit, and died on the gallows only a month after his twentieth birthday."
His criminality terrified the Indian Territory, today known as the state of Oklahoma.
Surprisingly, no one, as far as I know, has made a movie or a miniseries about him.
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