Governor Henry Hamilton became adept at diplomacy with Native Americans, establishing good relations with local Indian leaders of the Huron and Ottawa tribes.
An amateur artist, Hamilton also sketched portraits of many Native Americans while in Detroit, leaving what has been called the "earliest and largest collection of life portraits of Native Americans of the Upper Great Lakes."
This is now held by Houghton Library at Harvard University.

At the beginning of the war, British policy encouraged neutrality among the Native American leaders.
But in 1777 Hamilton received instructions to encourage Indian raid and massacre against the American frontier settlements in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky.

This was a controversial policy, because he and other officials realized that Loyalist civilian colonists would inevitably be killed in these raids, increasing resistance to the British.
Hamilton tried to limit civilian casualties by sending British Army officers and French-Canadian militia with the Native American war parties.
Despite this the Indian tribal warriors carried out their own customs during the raids, resulting in hundreds of women and children in Kentucky and western Pennsylvania being killed and ritually scalped during the war.
This, as feared, led to an increase in anti-British feeling in the land.
According to an early 20th-century local history, the frontier Americans believed that Hamilton paid bounties for prisoners and scalps brought in by the Indian warriors and hated him, calling him the "Hair-buyer General".
Hamilton denied ever paying for scalps.
Governor Henry Hamilton became adept at diplomacy with Native Americans, establishing good relations with local Indian leaders of the Huron and Ottawa tribes. An amateur artist, Hamilton also sketched portraits of many Native Americans while in Detroit, leaving what has been called the "earliest and largest collection of life portraits of Native Americans of the Upper Great Lakes." This is now held by Houghton Library at Harvard University.
At the beginning of the war, British policy encouraged neutrality among the Native American leaders. But in 1777 Hamilton received instructions to encourage Indian raid and massacre against the American frontier settlements in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky.
This was a controversial policy, because he and other officials realized that Loyalist civilian colonists would inevitably be killed in these raids, increasing resistance to the British. Hamilton tried to limit civilian casualties by sending British Army officers and French-Canadian militia with the Native American war parties. Despite this the Indian tribal warriors carried out their own customs during the raids, resulting in hundreds of women and children in Kentucky and western Pennsylvania being killed and ritually scalped during the war. This, as feared, led to an increase in anti-British feeling in the land. According to an early 20th-century local history, the frontier Americans believed that Hamilton paid bounties for prisoners and scalps brought in by the Indian warriors and hated him, calling him the "Hair-buyer General". Hamilton denied ever paying for scalps.
Henry Hamilton (colonial administrator)