Collection MSG 428 - William MacKay Collection

William MacKey (also spelled McKay) was born in 1772 in Mohawk River Valley and died in 1832 in Montreal. He was the son of Donald McKay, a former soldier with the 78th Fraser Highlanders, and Elspeth Kennedy, and he was the brother of Alexander McKay. MacKey travelled in the regions north and west of the Great Lakes and traded along the Menominee River and in Portage la Prairie. In the northwest, he married an Indigenous woman named Josette Latour, who later married North West Company trader John Haldane. In 1808, MacKey married Eliza Davidson, the daughter of Judge Arthur Davidson and Jane Fraser. They had two sons, one of whom survived infancy. MacKey’s duty as deputy superintendent in the North West Company was to advise Indigenous tribes to cultivate a harmonious relationship with the Americans. In Drummond Island (Michigan), he held a series of councils with Indigenous peoples throughout 1817 and 1818 and attempted to implement Britain’s post-war “Indian policy,” which was to reduce “His Majesty’s Indian Allies” from “warriors to wards.” MacKey served as a superintendent of Indian Affairs in Drummond Island from 1820 to 1828 and oversaw the first stages of the reserve system’s development in Upper and Lower Canada.