Meanwhile, the American Revolutionary War had begun in the east. In 1777, British officials opened a new front in the war with the American colonists by recruiting and arming Native American war parties to raid the Kentucky settlements. Henry Hamilton, the British Lieutenant Governor of Canada at Fort Detroit, found willing allies in leaders such as Chief Blackfish of the Shawnees, who hoped to drive the American colonists out of Kentucky and reclaim their hunting grounds. As the raids intensified, Americans who strayed from fortified settlements like Boonesborough were likely to be killed or captured. American Indians brought 129 scalps and 77 prisoners to Hamilton in 1777.