Charles Smith (March 25, 1875, disappeared 1907) was an American outlaw of the Wild West who was affiliated with the Van der Linde Gang. Of mixed African-American and Native American descent, he was one of the few gang members to survive its disintegration from 1899 to 1907, helping John Marston avenge Micah Bell's indirect murder of Arthur Morgan before disappearing and likely emigrating to Canada and starting a new life with a family of his own.
Biography[]
Smith in Colorado, 1899.
Charles Smith was born to Native American mother Embraces the Wind and African-American father Robert Smith, and he and his father resided with the mother's tribe until the US Army drove them away.
Smith's mother tried to stay with the family, but she was later captured by the army and forced onto the reservation, leading to Smith's father becoming a depressed alcoholic. At the age of 13, Charles ran away from home and wandered the country, joining Dutch Van der Linde's gang in the Rockies in the winter of 1898.
He sustained a burned hand during the 1899 Blackwater massacre, but he was still able to teach Arthur Morgan how to use a bow, was placed in charge of the gang's horses, and even took part in the robbery of Leviticus Cornwall's train.
He continued to take part in several violent actions, including the robbery of the main bank of New Orleans, but he decided to stay with the Wapiti tribe and help them escape from the Army. After the Van der Linde Gang parted ways, Smith settled in Arkansas, where he buried the bodies of Morgan and Susan Grimshaw.
By 1907, he had become a prize fighter in New Orleans, and he reunited with John Marston, who enlisted his help with taking down the informant and former gang member Micah Bell.
Smith was shot in the right shoulder by a sniper and wounded, but he survived and attended John and Abigail Marston's wedding before giving his farewells to the Marston family and Sadie Adler and heading off to Canada to live and raise a family there.
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