John Joel Glanton John Joel Glanton ( 1819 – April 23 , 1850 ) was an American , later a Texian fighting for independence , a Texas Ranger who served in the Texas Ranger Division during the Mexican American War , a soldier of fortune and mercenary , and later led the Glanton Gang of scalp hunters , infamous in the Southwest . Early life and education . Glanton ( sometimes spelled " Gallantin " ) , was born in Edgefield County , South Carolina , in 1819 . He was said to have been an outlaw 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 . Military 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 . Lane ' 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 John Coffee Hays ' second regiment of the First Texas Mounted Rifles , and saw action with Winfield Scott ' s army in central Mexico . Glanton Gang . 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 northern Mexico and what is now part of 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 also wore out their welcome and moved into what is now Arizona . Glanton Massacre . In Arizona , Glanton ' s men killed some Quechan 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 . On television . A 2005 episode of The History Channel 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 .