I laughed at the fact that Cipriano from Pray to God and Dig Your Grave has a bounty of $25,000. Dude must be a real menace and the sum definitely went up during the film. I mean, compare it to El Indio from A Fistful of Dollars who has a bounty of (only) $10,000, and he’s a real nasty SOB. El Puro has a $10,000 bounty too, but he honestly seems much more harmless than the likes of Indio or Cipriano. On the other hand, we don’t know how bad he was before he started drinking
So, who are the Spagh characters with the highest bounties?
The Jesse James dead or alive reward of $25,000 was a record I think and put up by the St Louis Midland Railroad (earlier in his career James was worth only $500 and that was for arrest and conviction). There was a $15,000 reward for Frank James on the same poster. It is not clear whether Bob Ford ever collected the reward although he was pardoned from a murder conviction (Wood Hite) by the State governor.
The next biggest reward was $10,000 dead or alive put up for Sam & Belle Starr by the US government
Billy the Kid was worth only $500 - Lew Wallace put up the reward - and that was for capture. As he had killed him, Pat Garrett had to lobby the New Mexico State legislature to get his money.
A bloke called Tom Nixon had $1,000 on his head for arrest and detention plus 10% of stolen mint monies (Pinkerton put up that reward)
Oliver Curtis Perry, train robber, had $2,250 reward for arrest put up by the Pinkertons ($1,000 a bit earlier).
The Union Pacific Railroad and Pacific Express put up $3,000 per robber for various members of The Wild Bunch in 1900. The reward then went up to $4,000 after another robbery.
Most of these rewards were based on conviction. When Harvey Logan alias Kid Curry escaped from jail the reward claimed on him became void as he had not been convicted.
What you certainly could not do was just turn up at a sheriff’s office with a wanted outlaw and be handed a wad of bounty cash. For a start the marshal or sheriff would not have the money. Rewards were offered by the government or the Railroads or the Pinkertons and you had to go to their offices and make a claim.
Update - it appears that Bob Ford did receive a payoff from the Railroad for killing Jesse James. Ford was only 21 when he killed Jesse although tends to be played by much older actors. In the 1939 Jesse James he’s played by John Carradine and even sells out Jesse at Northfield which was in 1876 when the real Ford was only 16 (and hadn’t joined the band).
The other type of bounties were private bounties put up by rich individuals. This appears in the novel and film True Grit in which Chaney is pursued for a private bounty because he killed a rich person. Judge Parker’s deputy US marshals got I think only $10 for each wanted fugitive they brought back to Fort Smith so private bounties were a must.
I just watched Rattler Kid where the hero is accused of killing an officer and stealing army money. His initial bounty is $100, then it goes up to $500, then $1000 and finally $10.000!
