Hamilton, the Man

     Welcome to the Wannaskan Almanac for Friday.

     Today is the birthday in 1755 or 1757 of Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton himself says it was '57, while an ambiguous document on the Caribbean island of Nevis where he was born says '55. 

     Hamilton was already famous when Hamilton, the Musical came out in 2015. A distant relative of ours was wild to see the show, but living in the Midwest, he had to settle for a bootlegged CD. He watched it several times and invited us to watch it at the home of a less distant relative.

     The CD recording was shot from a theatre balcony. Whenever the lights came up, the camera retreated under the bootlegger's coat. I admitted the music and dancing were powerful, but the lyrics were so muffled that subtitles had been added. Lyrics always sound sillier when read than when sung. Did Hamilton really talk like that?

    This post was to be a debunking of the play as a true representation of the historical Hamilton, but according to Hamilton's biographer Ron Chernow, the play pretty much stuck to the facts. And the facts are pretty amazing. Hamilton did just about everything in his short life except invent hip-hop.

    His parents were not married, though his mother was married to another man who started to make trouble over money when Hamilton was a youth. Hamilton's father then withdrew so the mother couldn't be accused of bigamy. Because his parents weren't married, Hamilton was not allowed to attend the church school, so he learned the basics from a Jewish schoolmistress. She taught him the Ten Commandments in Hebrew which inoculated him against anti-Semitism.

     Hamilton's mother died when he was 11 and he was put to work in the office of an island merchant. He was soon adept enough to run the place himself while the master went on trading trips. When a hurricane blew through the islands, he wrote an account for the newspapers that so impressed the locals that they collected money to send him to college in New York.

   Hamilton hadn't been given cash for his education, but trade goods he had to sell to cover his tuition and lodging. He was 17 at the time. He immediately began writing and speaking against British tyranny. He joined a New York militia company and taught himself tactics. His college closed when the British occupied New York City in 1776.
     After capturing several British cannon, Hamilton's infantry company became an artillery company. His reputation rose as he took part in several battles.  Several generals offered Hamilton a position on their staff, but he felt his best chance for glory was on the battlefield. When Washington invited him to become his chief of staff, he couldn't say no.

   As the war neared its end, Hamilton itched to get back into battle. Washington gave him his chance at Yorktown, where Hamilton led a successful attack on a British fortress.

    Well, I could go on and on about Hamilton's role in getting the Constitution ratified, his role as first Secretary of the Treasury, and the infamous duel with Aaron Burr that ended his life at age 47.  But I won't. You're better off reading the book, or watching the musical, preferably non-bootlegged.

Props for fantasies.