Many women in history are not remembered or recognized because they didn’t do anything bad or important to keep their memory alive. This isn’t true for Belle Starr. She is a women born in the 1850’s that is still widely remembered today by historians. She was born as a normal child into a normal family, but soon after her brother passed, and her father packed her and her family up and moved off, later after that she was accused of committing many illegal acts throughout the rest of her life. Could her personality, name, and the dreaded guilt by association just make people want to blame her? A researcher named Phillip Steele says that Belle Starr wasn’t a criminal at all but was accused of being a criminal for her personality mainly because …show more content…
Belle became Belle Star after marrying Sam Starr June 5, 1880. He was the son of her past husband’s old partner Tom Starr. When they married Sam was twenty-three years old and Belle was thirty-two, but the records falsely show her the young age of twenty-seven. Belle and Sam lived on land owned by Sam’s father called Younger bend, named after the Younger Gang. They let outlaws stay with them, and hid fugitives in their house. After only three years of marriage, Sam and Belle were both accused and tried for theft of horses. Belle was the first ever woman to be tried by the judge called the “hanging judge”, leaving her only a sentencing of less than one year prison time. Belle liked the “bad girl” reputation and posed for many pictures before spending her sentence in prison . “Sam Starr received a twelve-month sentence while Belle received two six-month sentences.” The Starr’s did their time in Detroit Michigan in 1882. The Starr’s were reported as great prisoners and got out after only serving nine short months. Upon getting out they returned to their former home Younger’s Bend. Belle was a normal person after returning from jail. Sam wasn’t so great. He was into the crime life once again with the outlaws and later became a fugitive. In this time of his life he hardly returned home to see Belle. Four years after being sentenced in 1882, Belle had to stand trial again. She was accused of being with three bandits in a robbery in Younger’s bend. The location of her trial was Fort Smith, Arkansas, and the court did not have enough evidence to convict her, and thought it was a case of mistaken identity. Belle had to return before the same court three months later for mistakenly selling a stolen horse to one of her friends, and was once again found not guilty. Upon returning home, she found out that Sam had been injured after an ambush. Sam fled to his brother’s house where his then