Editing Scalping (section)

===American Revolutionary War===
[[File:"British and Indians, War of 1812!".jpg|thumb|An American [[political cartoon]] made during the [[War of 1812]]. It depicts a British officer giving a Native warrior (referred to as a "[[Savage (pejorative term)|Savage]] Indian") a reward for an American soldier's scalp accompanied by a poem.]]

During the [[American Revolutionary War]], [[British Indian Department]] official [[Henry Hamilton (governor)|Henry Hamilton]] was nicknamed the "hair-buyer general" by [[Patriot (American Revolution)|American Patriots]] as they believed he encouraged and paid British-allied Natives to scalp Americans. As a result, when Hamilton was captured by American troops, he was treated as a war criminal instead of a [[prisoner of war]]. However, American historians have noted that there was no proof that he had ever offered rewards for scalps,<ref>{{cite DCB |last=Arthur |first=Elizabeth |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/hamilton_henry_4E.html |title=Hamilton, Henry |volume=4}}</ref> and no British officer paid for scalps during the conflict.<ref>Kelsey pg. 303</ref>

However, both sides of the war scalped enemy corpses. The September 13, 1779 journal entry of American Lieutenant William Barton recounted how U.S. troops scalped Native dead during the [[Sullivan Expedition]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/stream/cu31924095654384#page/n38/mode/1up/ |title=Journals of the military expedition of Major General John Sullivan against the Six nations of Indians in 1779; with records of centennial celebrations; prepared pursuant to chapter 361, laws of the state of New York, of 1885 |website=Archive.org |year=1887 |publisher=Auburn, N.Y., Knapp, Peck & Thomson, Printers |access-date=2016-07-28 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160322181618/https://archive.org/stream/cu31924095654384#page/n38/mode/1up/ |archive-date=2016-03-22 }}</ref> British-allied [[Iroquois]] also practiced scalping. The most famous case was that of [[Jane McCrea]], whose fiancé was a Loyalist officer. She was abducted by two Iroquois warriors and ultimately scalped and shot. Her death inspired many American colonists to resist a British invasion from Canada, which ended in defeat at the [[battles of Saratoga]].<ref>Peter R. Silver Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America (New York) WW Norton 2009) 246</ref>