McGillivray, Alexander (c. 1759–1793)

US Creek leader and trader. After the American Revolution, he would spend the rest of his life trying to build up a ‘united front’ of the American Indians of the southeast against the encroaching white settlements; it is suspected that he was also in part motivated by his desire to protect his own trading enterprise. To do this he made a treaty with Spain (1784) and then encouraged the Creeks to war against the frontier settlements (1785–87). He achieved some success, but in 1790 he went to New York City and signed a peace treaty; in 1792 he repudiated this and signed another treaty with Spain. In each of these treaties, he made sure that he was paid a generous sum for his support and he died a rich man.

McGillivray was born along the Coosa River in present-day Alabama. The son of a Scottish merchant and an American Indian, he was raised among the Creek but his father saw that he was also educated in some of the white people's ways. With the outbreak of the American Revolution, he was appointed a colonel by the British and he encouraged American Indian attacks on US settlements.