Henry Hamilton (colonial administrator)
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Henry Hamilton (c. 1734 – 29 September 1796) was an Anglo-Irish military officer and later government official of the British Empire. He served in North America as Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Quebec and later as Deputy Governor after the American Revolutionary War. He later served as
Governor of Bermuda The Governor of Bermuda (fully the ''Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Somers Isles (alias the Islands of Bermuda)'') is the representative of the British monarch in the British overseas territory of Bermuda. For the purposes of this a ...
and lastly, as
Governor of Dominica This article lists the governors and other administrators of Dominica (where known), during its time as a colony of the Kingdom of Great Britain (1761–1778; 1784–1800), the Kingdom of France (1778–1784), and the United Kingdom (1800–1978). ...
, where he died in office. In 1779, Hamilton was captured during the Revolutionary War by rebel forces at
Fort Sackville During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the French, British and U.S. forces built and occupied a number of forts at Vincennes, Indiana. These outposts commanded a strategic position on the Wabash River. The names of the installations were change ...
in present-day Indiana, while serving as the Lieutenant Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, at the British outpost of Fort Detroit. He was transported to Virginia, where he was held by Governor Thomas Jefferson's rebel government until October 1780. He was sent to New York and gained freedom in a prisoner exchange in 1781, being allowed to depart for London, England.


Early life

Henry was probably born in Dublin, Ireland, a younger son of Henry Hamilton, an Irish Member of Parliament, and his wife. Hamilton was raised in County Cork, Ireland. His older brother
Sackville Hamilton Sackville Hamilton PC (Ire) (14 March 1732 – 29 January 1818) was an Anglo-Irish politician. Early life Hamilton was born on 14 March 1732. He was the third son, of seven children born to Mary Dawson (daughter of Joshua Dawson) and Hon. He ...
later served as a Privy Councillor and Under-Secretary to the
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (), or more formally Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland, was the title of the chief governor of Ireland from the Williamite Wars of 1690 until the Partition of Ireland in 1922. This spanned the Kingdo ...
. His direct paternal great-great grandfather was Claud Hamilton, 1st Lord Paisley.


Military career

As was typical of younger sons, Henry Hamilton entered the military. During the French and Indian War in North America, part of the Seven Years' War between Britain and France, he served as a Captain in the
15th Regiment of Foot 15 (fifteen) is the natural number following 14 and preceding 16. Mathematics 15 is: * A composite number, and the sixth semiprime; its proper divisors being , and . * A deficient number, a smooth number, a lucky number, a pernicious num ...
. They fought in the 1758 attack on
Louisbourg Louisbourg is an unincorporated community and former town in Cape Breton Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia. History The French military founded the Fortress of Louisbourg in 1713 and its fortified seaport on the southwest part of the harbour, ...
and the Battle of Quebec. With the support of Governor General of British North America
Guy Carleton Guy Carleton may refer to: *Guy Carleton (bishop) (1605–1685), Anglican bishop * Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester (1724–1808), Irish soldier and early Governor of Canada * Guy Carleton (general), (1857–1946), United States Army major genera ...
, Hamilton rose to the rank of brigade major. In 1775, he sold his commission, leaving the British Army for a political career.


American Revolutionary War


Lieutenant Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs at Fort Detroit

In 1775, Henry Hamilton was appointed as Lieutenant Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs at Fort Detroit, Province of Quebec (it then extended from the Atlantic to this area), British North America. (The fort site is now within the borders of Detroit, Michigan). This was one of five newly created lieutenant governorships in the recently expanded eastern territory of Canada. When Governor Hamilton reached his base at Fort Detroit to assume his government duties in the Great Lakes region, the American Revolutionary War was already underway. Hamilton was in a difficult position: as a civil official, he had few British regular troops at his command, and the natives of the region—
French Canadians French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fren ...
and American Indians—were not all supporters of the British regime. Normand Macleod, a local fur trader and army officer, acted as the temporary "town major", a British government official in command of a fortified town, before Hamilton's arrival.


British war policies on the western frontier

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 raids against the American frontier settlements in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky. This was a controversial policy, because he and other officials realized that American Loyalists would inevitably be killed in these raids. Hamilton tried to limit civilian casualties by sending British Army officers and
French-Canadian French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fr ...
militia alongside 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 Scalping is the act of cutting or tearing a part of the human scalp, with hair attached, from the head, and generally occurred in warfare with the scalp being a trophy. Scalp-taking is considered part of the broader cultural practice of the tak ...
during the war. This, as feared, led to an increase in anti-British feelings in the region. According to an early 20th-century local history, the frontier Americans accused Hamilton of paying bounties for prisoners and scalps brought in by the Indian warriors, calling him the "Hair-buyer General". Hamilton denied ever paying for scalps.


George Rogers Clark and Illinois Regiment, Virginia state forces in the Illinois Country

In 1778, Patriot Colonel
George Rogers Clark George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was an American surveyor, soldier, and militia officer from Virginia who became the highest-ranking American patriot military officer on the northwestern frontier during the Ame ...
, commanding Virginia state forces, captured several undermanned British posts in the Illinois Country, including
Fort Sackville During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the French, British and U.S. forces built and occupied a number of forts at Vincennes, Indiana. These outposts commanded a strategic position on the Wabash River. The names of the installations were change ...
at Vincennes (then in Virginia-claimed land, now in present-day Indiana). Hamilton led an armed party from Detroit on 7 October 1778 to recapture the British post, 600 miles away. His small force gathered Indian warriors along the way, and entered Vincennes on 17 December 1778. They captured Fort Sackville and the American commandant, Captain
Leonard Helm Leonard Helm was an American frontiersman and military officer who served during the American Revolutionary War. Born around 1720 probably in Fauquier County, Virginia,English, 1:107 he died in poverty while fighting Native American allies of Brit ...
. In February 1779, however, Colonel Clark returned to Vincennes in a surprise march, recapturing the outpost and taking Hamilton prisoner.


Defeat and prisoner in Virginia

General George Rogers Clark sent Hamilton to the Virginia state capital in
Williamsburg Williamsburg may refer to: Places *Colonial Williamsburg, a living-history museum and private foundation in Virginia *Williamsburg, Brooklyn, neighborhood in New York City *Williamsburg, former name of Kernville (former town), California *Williams ...
, where he was jailed and placed in irons by order of Governor Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia Executive Council. Hamilton was held from 16 June – September 29, 1779. Hamilton rejected an offer of parole on the grounds that the terms violated his freedom of speech, in restraining him from "saying anything to the prejudice of the United States." Jefferson refused to treat Hamilton and other British prisoners as prisoners-of-war and handled them as would have handled escaped slaves; putting them in irons for 18 months in Williamsburg and Chesterfield. Governor Jefferson did not release Hamilton until October 1780, and only after
George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
during several months had entreated him to accept his parole. Hamilton was sent to New York to await a prisoner exchange. This took place in March 1781. He immediately sailed to London, England on a British ship.


Later career as British royal governor

Henry Hamilton was reassigned to Canada in 1782 under an appointment as Lieutenant-Governor, and later Deputy-Governor of the Province of Quebec. He administered during the transition in the postwar years as the Crown granted thousands of acres of land, mostly in what became Upper Canada, to Loyalists as compensation for their losses in the former Thirteen Colonies and as payment to soldiers. After a few years, Hamilton was reassigned as royal
Governor of Bermuda The Governor of Bermuda (fully the ''Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Somers Isles (alias the Islands of Bermuda)'') is the representative of the British monarch in the British overseas territory of Bermuda. For the purposes of this a ...
, serving from 1785 to 1794. He then departed Bermuda on HMS Scorpion (stopping enroute at Antigua on 4 December 1794) to serve as
Governor of Dominica This article lists the governors and other administrators of Dominica (where known), during its time as a colony of the Kingdom of Great Britain (1761–1778; 1784–1800), the Kingdom of France (1778–1784), and the United Kingdom (1800–1978). ...
, the present-day Commonwealth of Dominica, from 1794 until his death in office in 1796. In March 1795, at age 61, Hamilton married 25-year-old Elizabeth Lee from Banbury, Oxfordshire, a daughter of Colonel Lee. The Hamiltons had one daughter together, Mary Anne Pierpoint Hamilton. She died in 1871, unmarried and without children.


Death

Hamilton died in office on the island of
Antigua Antigua ( ), also known as Waladli or Wadadli by the native population, is an island in the Lesser Antilles. It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region and the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua and Bar ...
, British North America, now Antigua and Barbuda, on 29 September 1796. Among his papers, Hamilton had kept a journal from 1778-1779 as Lieutenant Governor at Fort Detroit during the American Revolution; this was published for the first time posthumously in 1951 in a history that addressed his and George Rogers Clark's roles in the war.Barnhart, John D. ''Henry Hamilton and George Rogers Clark in the American Revolution, with the Unpublished Journal of Lieut. Governor Henry Hamilton''. Crawfordville, Indiana: Banta, 1951


In popular culture

US author
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
wrote an epic historical novel in 1904 called '' The Crossing'' covering a man's life in the old Northwest from the Revolution to the Burr Conspiracy. The first part is about the protagonist marching as a drummer boy with
George Rogers Clark George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was an American surveyor, soldier, and militia officer from Virginia who became the highest-ranking American patriot military officer on the northwestern frontier during the Ame ...
and the highlight is the capture of Vincennes from Hamilton. There is much information about Hamilton's activities and his reputation among the local backwoodsmen, based on research from original documents.


References

* *Sheehan, Bernard W. "'The Famous Hair Buyer General': Henry Hamilton, George Rogers Clark, and the American Indian," ''Indiana Magazine of History'' 69 (March 1983): 1–28. *


External links


"Henry Hamilton's Journal"
1778–1779, Indiana Historical Bureau {{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Henry 1734 births 1796 deaths American Revolutionary War prisoners of war held by the United States British military personnel of the French and Indian War British officials in the American Revolution East Yorkshire Regiment officers Governors of Bermuda Governors of Dominica Lieutenant Governors of the Province of Quebec (1763–1791) Indiana in the American Revolution Michigan in the American Revolution British prisoners of war in the American Revolutionary War