Starr, Belle, 1848?–89, American outlaw, b. near Carthage, Mo. Her original name was Myra Belle (or Maybelle) Shirley. Her family members were Confederate sympathizers, and her father was a farmer who later operated a tavern in Carthage, where she spent her childhood. The Shirleys subsequently (1864) moved to Scyene, near Dallas, Tex. Early in her life Belle met Cole Younger, Younger, Cole (Thomas Coleman Younger), 1844–1916, American outlaw, b. Jackson co., Mo. After the Civil War he joined the outlaw band of Jesse James, with whom he had served as a Confederate guerrilla under William C. Quantrill.
..... Click the link for more information. with whom she was long (and probably falsely) rumored to have had a child. She also became close to Jesse James James, Jesse (Woodson), 1847–82, American outlaw, b. Clay co., Mo. At the age of 15 he joined the Confederate guerrilla band led by William Quantrill and participated in the brutal and bloody civil warfare in Kansas and Missouri.
..... Click the link for more information. and his gang, the rest of the Youngers, and other outlaws, many of whom, like her brother, had served with Quantrill Quantrill, William Clarke (kwŏn`trĭl), 1837–65, Confederate guerrilla leader, b. Canal Dover (now Dover), Ohio.
..... Click the link for more information. 's raiders during the Civil War. In 1866 she married the outlaw Jim Reed. After he was killed she wed (1880) Sam Starr, a Cherokee outlaw, and went to live in the Indian Territory Indian Territory, in U.S. history, name applied to the country set aside for Native Americans by the Indian Intercourse Act (1834). In the 1820s, the federal government began moving the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw) of the
..... Click the link for more information. (now Oklahoma). Her home there became a retreat for outlaws, for whom she operated mainly as a "fixer" with the legal authorities. In 1883 she and Starr were convicted of horse-stealing and briefly imprisoned. Starr's reputation as a notorious horse thief and murderess was greatly magnified in Richard K. Fox's popular novel Bella Starr, the Bandit Queen; or, the Female Jesse James (1889), written after she was shot to death by an unknown assailant.

Bibliography

See biographies by B. Rascoe (1941), E. P. Hicks (1963), C. W. Breiham (1970), G. Shirley (1982), and P. W. Steele (1989).

Starr, Belle

orig. Myra Belle Shirley

(born Feb. 5, 1848, Washington county, Mo., U.S.—died Feb. 3, 1889, near Briartown, Okla.) U.S. outlaw. She grew up in Missouri and later moved to a farm at Scyene, near Dallas, Texas. She bore a child by the outlaw Cole Younger (1844–1916) and another by Jim Reed, with whom she rustled cattle and horses in Texas in 1869. She fashioned herself the “bandit queen,” dressing in velvet and feathers or buckskin and moccasins. In 1880 she became the common-law wife of Sam Starr, and their Oklahoma ranch became an outlaws' hideout. Sam was killed in a gunfight in 1886, and Belle herself was later shot down near her ranch.

Starr, (Shirley) Belle (b. Myra Belle) (1848–89) bandit queen; born at or near Carthage, Mo. Her brothers were killed while fighting with Quantrill's Raiders in the Civil War and in gunfights. She was romantically linked with Thomas Coleman Younger, James H. Reed, Sam Starr, a Cherokee, and Jim July, also a Cherokee. She was rumored to be the "leader of a band of horse thieves" and was convicted once by “Hanging Judge” Parker (1883). On other occasions, she defended herself and her companions with great legal skill. She was shot and killed—allegedly by a man wanted for murder and who inevitably feared she might turn him in—and she was immortalized in popular literature.