A Man of Distinction Among Them by Larry L Nelson

Author:Larry L Nelson [Nelson, Larry L]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, Revolutionary Period (1775-1800)
ISBN: 9780873387002
Google: y1KekDaaKKAC
Publisher: Kent State University Press
Published: 1999-01-15T03:35:58+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

Land Acquisition, Public Affairs, and Politics, 1783–1799

________

Following the Revolution, McKee began the process through which he gained full membership as one of the region’s social and civil elite. The transformation was deliberate and was accompanied by a self-conscious thirst for status, demonstrated in both his public and private affairs. Moreover, he brought about this transformation by employing the same skills he had used with the Ohio Country nations. He manipulated his control of resources and forged and then exploited ties based on family and trade. In 1783, British officials addressed the matter of rank that had so vexed McKee throughout the conflict, advancing him to the rank of colonel in the Indian department. The promotion was not the military rank that John Connolly had promised in 1777. Though organized along a military-like chain of command, the Indian department was a semiautonomous bureau that operated in cooperation with the British army. The military supplied the department with its budget, and both the army and the Indian department were under the direction of the commander in chief. The Indian department, however, was headed by its own superintendent general and operated outside the military’s formal command structure.1

The promotion recognized McKee’s contributions during the war and the increase in his responsibilities following the conflict. During the war, Indian department officials at Detroit had been directed by the post’s commanding officers, Henry Hamilton and Arent DePeyster. In August 1783, DePeyster, recognizing the need to reestablish independent control of the Indian department, urged Sir John Johnson, the superintendent general, to appoint McKee as head of the department. Lieutenant governor Jehu Hay also supported McKee’s appointment and wrote to Haldimand, describing McKee as “a very good man [who] understands the management of Indians as well as any officer in the Department.” By mid-August, DePeyster delegated full responsibility for the management of Indian affairs to McKee, who had been acting deputy agent at Detroit ever since Hay’s capture by George Rogers Clark in 1779. McKee retained this duty, greatly expanded and under a variety of administrative titles, until the end of his career. In March 1790, Lord Dorchester, describing McKee as “an old Servant universally spoken of for his merits,” named him to be Indian agent at Detroit. In March 1794, McKee’s duties were expanded to include supervision of the department at Michilimackinac. Later that year he was appointed deputy superintendent and inspector general for Indian affairs for Upper and Lower Canada, the position that he held at his death in January 1799.2

McKee’s visibility within the Indian department, his demonstrated administrative strengths, and his familiarity with the region’s military affairs prepared the way for his appointment to other posts within the colonial administration. In the 1790s, as increased tensions between Great Britain and the United States threatened to expand into open warfare, British officials, fearing for the safety of Detroit, attempted to strengthen the area’s militia. As the Indian department’s senior officer, McKee was named lieutenant colonel, commandant of the militia for the Detroit region in 1792.

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