Alexander McKee

Alexander McKee, (ca. 1735 – 15 January 1799), was an agent in the British Indian Department during the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian Wars.

McKee was born in the Susquehanna River Valley in Pennsylvania approximately in 1735. His father Thomas was an Irish immigrant and his mother Mary was from a North Carolina settler's family who had been captured and adopted by the Shawnee tribe. It was through his mother's tutelage that Alexander learned the customs and language of the Indians and came to develop a lifetime relationship with the Ohio Indian tribes.

Initially McKee began working with traders to the Indians of the Ohio Country. Soon, he was able to establish his own trading business. Because of his good relations with the Ohio tribes, Indian agent George Croghan enlisted McKee in the service of the Crown's Indian Department. He continued in the service of Pennsylvania for some time after the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, but following mistreatment by the settlers he left the Americans in favor of the British at Detroit. It was during this transition that he established his well known association with Matthew Elliott and the Girty brothers: Simon, James, and George.

During the next 25 years Alexander McKee would lead in the efforts of promoting the alliance of the Indians to the British most especially with the Shawnee tribe, but also with the majority of the Northwest Indian tribes. He died at Fort Malden in Canada in 1799 and was mourned and greatly honored by the Northwest tribes.

External links

* [http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=2062 Biography at the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online"]
* [http://209.202.75.197/digi/chi/drawpage.asp?RelationID=mckee "A short Biography"]
* [http://oieahc.wm.edu/wmq/Jul00/nelsonjuly2000.pdf "Alexander McKee"]