I have never listened to the music of Hamilton, much less seen the Broadway show, but my reaction to what I heard about the play was always pretty much the same as that of Eric Loomis, over at Lawyers, Guns & Money. I was both mystified and irritated that anyone would portray Hamilton as some sort of hero of the people, when in fact he was a servant of the elite. If he’d had his way, we might have gotten a king along with the Constitution, and he certainly used all his influence to fashion a government that put a substantial buffer between the will of the people and the power structure in this country. His mistrust of democracy was never concealed, and his preference for monarchical or aristocratical rule was an open secret.
Apparently the play also portrays him as some sort of abolitionist, but while that’s hitherto been a subject of debate, it’s now more than subject to debate, as this New York Times article to which Loomis links establishes:
Some biographers have gingerly addressed the matter over the years, often in footnotes or passing references. But a new research paper released by the Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site in Albany, N.Y., offers the most ringing case yet.
In the paper, titled “‘As Odious and Immoral a Thing’: Alexander Hamilton’s Hidden History as an Enslaver,” Jessie Serfilippi, a historical interpreter at the mansion, examines letters, account books and other documents. Her conclusion — about Hamilton, and what she suggests is wishful thinking on the part of many of his modern-day admirers — is blunt.
“Not only did Alexander Hamilton enslave people, but his involvement in the institution of slavery was essential to his identity, both personally and professionally,” she writes.
“It is vital,” she adds, “that the myth of Hamilton as ‘the Abolitionist Founding Father’ end.”
The evidence cited in the paper, which was quietly published online last month, is not entirely new. But Ms. Serfilippi’s forceful case has caught the eye of historians, particularly those who have questioned what they see as his inflated antislavery credentials.
Annette Gordon-Reed, a professor of history and law at Harvard and the author of “The Hemingses of Monticello,” called the paper “fascinating” and the argument plausible. “It just shows that the founders were nearly all implicated in slavery in some way,” she said.
Joanne Freeman, a professor of history at Yale and editor of the Library of America edition of Hamilton’s writings, said that the detailed evidence remained to be fully weighed. But she said the paper was part of a welcome reconsideration of what she called “the Hero Hamilton” narrative.
Hamilton married into the elite Schuyler family, and many of his papers are preserved at their mansion where they had many “servants”, their code word for slaves.
Aaron Burr is usually portrayed as the bad guy, as if Hamilton wasn’t perfectly willing to kill Burr if it had worked out that way. But between the two, Burr would have been the better choice if one had to choose. Burr was really anti-slavery, and he was even an advocate for woman’s rights.
