James Kirker

James Kirker (1793–1852) was an Irish-born American privateer, soldier, mercenary, merchant, Mountain man, and scalp hunter.

[1] Kirker was born in Killead, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, to an Ulster Scots family, but left for New York City, United States, at the age of 16 to avoid conscription in the Royal Navy.

In an ironic twist, he became a "legal" American privateer to raid British ships off the East Coast of the United States in the War of 1812.

He was a privateer for a year, but returned to New York in 1813 and married Catherine Donigan and had a son, James B. Kirker.

In 1824, he followed the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico and spent winters during the next decade trapping and trading beaver pelts in the southern Rocky Mountains.

[4] Kirker's first operation in 1840 was to kill 10 Apache men and take 20 women and children prisoners from a group that had begun peace negotiations with Mexican authorities.

[5] However, the bankrupt Chihuahua government could not afford to continue paying Kirker and offered him instead a commission as Colonel in the Mexican Army.