John Joel Glanton
Encyclopedia
John Joel Glanton was an American member of the U.S. Army
during the mid-19th century, a soldier of fortune and mercenary, and later led the Glanton Gang of scalp hunters
in the Southwest.
in Tennessee
, where his family had moved, before they went to Texas
. He would have been under arms at an early age.
In 1835 at age 16, Glanton was living with his parents at Gonzales, Texas
. Some accounts said he was engaged but his fiancée was killed that year by Lipan Apaches.
's San Antonio company of Texas Rangers
in the Mexican-American War, he is attributed by contemporary sources as in 1847 having killed a Mexican civilian in the city of Magdalena. Although Glanton protested he had done so when the civilian had refused to obey his commands as sentry to halt passage, other witnesses claimed it had been an act of murder. The event brought Walter P. Lane, then a major
in the army, into conflict with General Zachary Taylor
. As a result, Glanton was forced to flee the American army police who were sent to arrest him. He later re-enlisted in Jack Hays
' second regiment of the First Texas Mounted Rifles, and saw action with Winfield Scott
's army in central Mexico.
After the war in summer 1849, Glanton and his gang were hired in a nominally mercenary
operation by Mexican
authorities, to track down and kill dangerous bands of Apache
Indians
in the Southwest
. To earn more money, the Glanton gang began murdering and scalping peaceful agricultural Indians and Mexican citizens alike to claim under the bounty for scalps. The state of Chihuahua put a bounty
on the heads of the gang, declaring them outlaws by December 1849. Chihuahua authorities drove the gang out to Sonora where they wore out their welcome and moved into Arizona.
natives and took over operating their ferry on the Gila River
in Arizona
, which transported migrants to the California Gold Rush
. They sometimes killed the Mexican and American passengers to take their money and goods. A band of Quechan led by Caballo en Pelo killed and scalped Glanton and most of his gang in retaliation. They reclaimed the tribe's ferry business. The California state government recruited men for a militia and directed the ill-fated Gila Expedition
military operation against the Quechan tribe.
series Wild West Tech
featured an account of the Glanton Gang, focusing on Glanton's misdeeds as a scalphunter. These scenes were filmed at Old Tucson Studios
near Tucson, Arizona
.
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
during the mid-19th century, a soldier of fortune and mercenary, and later led the Glanton Gang of scalp hunters
Scalping
Scalping is the act of removing another person's scalp or a portion of their scalp, either from a dead body or from a living person. The initial purpose of scalping was to provide a trophy of battle or portable proof of a combatant's prowess in war...
in the Southwest.
Early life and education
Glanton was born in Edgefield County, South Carolina, in 1819. He was said to have been an outlawOutlaw
In historical legal systems, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, this takes the burden of active prosecution of a criminal from the authorities. Instead, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute...
in Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, where his family had moved, before they went to Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
. He would have been under arms at an early age.
In 1835 at age 16, Glanton was living with his parents at Gonzales, Texas
Gonzales, Texas
Gonzales is a city in Gonzales County, Texas, United States. The population was 7,202 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Gonzales County.-Geography:Gonzales is located at...
. Some accounts said he was engaged but his fiancée was killed that year by Lipan Apaches.
Career
Glanton was involved early in military affairs in Texas and the Southwest, participating in the fight for Texas independence, and later in the Mexican-American War. While a member of Walter P. LaneWalter P. Lane
Walter Paye Lane was a Confederate general during the American Civil War who also served in the armies of the Republic of Texas and the United States of America.-Early life:...
's San Antonio company of Texas Rangers
Texas Ranger Division
The Texas Ranger Division, commonly called the Texas Rangers, is a law enforcement agency with statewide jurisdiction in Texas, and is based in Austin, Texas...
in the Mexican-American War, he is attributed by contemporary sources as in 1847 having killed a Mexican civilian in the city of Magdalena. Although Glanton protested he had done so when the civilian had refused to obey his commands as sentry to halt passage, other witnesses claimed it had been an act of murder. The event brought Walter P. Lane, then a major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...
in the army, into conflict with General Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass...
. As a result, Glanton was forced to flee the American army police who were sent to arrest him. He later re-enlisted in Jack Hays
Jack Hays
Christopher John "Jack" Hays was an English professional association footballer who played as a winger.-References:...
' second regiment of the First Texas Mounted Rifles, and saw action with Winfield Scott
Winfield Scott
Winfield Scott was a United States Army general, and unsuccessful presidential candidate of the Whig Party in 1852....
's army in central Mexico.
After the war in summer 1849, Glanton and his gang were hired in a nominally mercenary
Mercenary
A mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...
operation by Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
authorities, to track down and kill dangerous bands of Apache
Apache
Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
Indians
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
in the Southwest
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
. To earn more money, the Glanton gang began murdering and scalping peaceful agricultural Indians and Mexican citizens alike to claim under the bounty for scalps. The state of Chihuahua put a bounty
Bounty (reward)
A bounty is a payment or reward often offered by a group as an incentive for the accomplishment of a task by someone usually not associated with the group. Bounties are most commonly issued for the capture or retrieval of a person or object. They are typically in the form of money...
on the heads of the gang, declaring them outlaws by December 1849. Chihuahua authorities drove the gang out to Sonora where they wore out their welcome and moved into Arizona.
Glanton Massacre
In Arizona, Glanton's men killed some QuechanQuechan
The Quechan are a Native American tribe who live on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation on the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California just north of the border with Mexico...
natives and took over operating their ferry on the Gila River
Gila River
The Gila River is a tributary of the Colorado River, 650 miles long, in the southwestern states of New Mexico and Arizona.-Description:...
in Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, which transported migrants to the California Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
. They sometimes killed the Mexican and American passengers to take their money and goods. A band of Quechan led by Caballo en Pelo killed and scalped Glanton and most of his gang in retaliation. They reclaimed the tribe's ferry business. The California state government recruited men for a militia and directed the ill-fated Gila Expedition
Gila Expedition
The Gila Expedition or Morehead War was an 1850 California militia attack on the Quechan Indians in retaliation for the Glanton Massacre near the confluence of the Gila River and Colorado River in Arizona. It was the beginning of the 1850 to 1853 Yuma War.Downriver from a ferry by A.L...
military operation against the Quechan tribe.
In literature
- Samuel ChamberlainSamuel ChamberlainSamuel E. Chamberlain was a soldier, painter, and author who travelled throughout the American Southwest and Mexico. He and his wife, Mary, had three children.-Early life:...
, who claimed to have been a member of the gang, wrote an account of their activities in his memoir, My Confession.
- A fictionalized Glanton is featured prominently in Cormac McCarthyCormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
's novel Blood Meridian (1985), in which many of the events are based on Chamberlain's account. McCarthy featured a character who was Glanton's second-in-command, the mysterious Judge HoldenJudge HoldenJudge Holden is purportedly a historical person, a murderer who partnered with John Joel Glanton as a professional scalphunter in the mid-19th century. To date, the only source for Holden's existence is Samuel Chamberlain's My Confession, an autobiographical account which has been criticized as...
, as the primary antagonist of his book.
- Glanton, along with another historical scalp hunter, James KirkerJames KirkerJames Kirker was an Irish born, American pirate, soldier, mercenary, merchant, fur trader and scalp hunter. He came to New York at the age of 16 and soon joined a privateer ship hunting for British merchant ships in the war of 1812....
, appears briefly in the opening scenes of Larry McMurtryLarry McMurtryLarry Jeff McMurtry is an American novelist, essayist, bookseller and screenwriter whose work is predominantly set in either the old West or in contemporary Texas...
's novel Dead Man's WalkDead Man's WalkDead Man's Walk is a 1995 novel by Larry McMurtry. It is the third book published in the Lonesome Dove series, but the first installment in terms of chronology. McMurtry wrote a fourth segment to the Lonesome Dove chronicle, Comanche Moon, which describes the events of the central characters' lives...
(1995). That book serves as the first part of McMurtry's Lonesome DoveLonesome DoveLonesome Dove is a 1985 Pulitzer Prize–winning western novel written by Larry McMurtry. It is the first published book of the Lonesome Dove series, but the third installment in the series chronologically...
tetralogyTetralogyA tetralogy is a compound work that is made up of four distinct works, just as a trilogy is made up of three works....
.
- Jeremiah ClemensJeremiah ClemensJeremiah Clemens was a U.S. senator and novelist from the state of Alabama. He was elected to fill the vacancy left by the death of Dixon Hall Lewis, and served from November 30, 1849 to March 3, 1853...
includes Glanton as a character in his novel Bernard Lile (1856), in what is one of the earliest fictional works concerning the Texas RevolutionTexas RevolutionThe Texas Revolution or Texas War of Independence was an armed conflict between Mexico and settlers in the Texas portion of the Mexican state Coahuila y Tejas. The war lasted from October 2, 1835 to April 21, 1836...
.
- Glanton is a character in George MacDonald FraserGeorge MacDonald FraserGeorge MacDonald Fraser, OBE was an English-born author of Scottish descent, who wrote both historical novels and non-fiction books, as well as several screenplays.-Early life and military career:...
's Flashman and the RedskinsFlashman and the RedskinsFlashman and the Redskins is a 1982 novel by George MacDonald Fraser. It is the seventh of the Flashman novels.-Plot introduction:Presented within the frame of the supposed discovery of a trunkful of papers detailing the long life and career of a Victorian officer, this series centres around...
(1982), an installment in the long-running Flashman series of comic novels.
- A comic-book account of Glanton's story, also based on Chamberlain's memoir, is included in The Big Book of the Weird Wild West published by Paradox Press.
On Television
A 2005 episode of The History ChannelThe History Channel
History, formerly known as The History Channel, is an American-based international satellite and cable TV channel that broadcasts a variety of reality shows and documentary programs including those of fictional and non-fictional historical content, together with speculation about the future.-...
series Wild West Tech
Wild West Tech
Wild West Tech was a program that aired on The History Channel in the United States. The show was originally hosted by Keith Carradine , but his brother, David Carradine took over hosting duties for season 2 and subsequent seasons...
featured an account of the Glanton Gang, focusing on Glanton's misdeeds as a scalphunter. These scenes were filmed at Old Tucson Studios
Old Tucson Studios
Old Tucson Studios is a movie studio and theme park just west of Tucson, Arizona, adjacent to the Tucson Mountains and close to the western portion of Saguaro National Park. Built in 1939 for the movie Arizona, it has been used for the filming of several movies and television westerns since then,...
near Tucson, Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
.
Further reading
- Ralph A. Smith, "John Joel Glanton, Lord of the Scalp Range," Smoke Signal, Fall 1962.
External links
- "John Glanton's Gang", University of Virginia