During the American Revolution, the very name of Detroit was enough to send a shudder through every American patriot. That was when the settlement's British governor, Henry Hamilton, was known as 'the Hair Buyer of Detroit.' Under his direction, whole armies of Indians, armed with red-handled scalping knives, were dispatched against frontier homes and communities. Among the State papers of Virginia, In Council, June 18, 1779, is the following: 'It appears that Governor Hamilton gave standing rewards for scalps, but offered none for prisoners, which induced the Indians, after making their captives carry their baggage into the neighborhood of the fort, there to put them to death and carry in their scalps to the Governor, who welcomed their return and success by a discharge of cannon.'
Michigan - A Guide to the Wolverine State, page 235
Oxford University Press, New York, 1941