Hamilton What The Musical Changes About The Real Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton: What The Musical Changes About The Real Alexander Hamilton

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Hamilton is based on Ron Chernow’s autobiography of Alexander Hamilton, but the musical takes a few liberties with the founding father’s life.

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Composer, writer and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda was inspired to write the musical Hamilton after reading Ron Chernow’s biography Alexander Hamilton. As a result, many of the details of Hamilton’s life in the show – as well as the overall portrayal of him as an ambitious, feverishly hard-working and passionate man – were drawn from Chernow’s account of the real Alexander Hamilton. That said, Hamilton also makes a number of changes from the true story in order to better make Hamilton’s life fit the format and drama of a three-hour musical.

Elements of Hamilton that are mostly fictionalized include the supposed love triangle between Alexander, his wife Elizabeth Schuyler, and Elizabeth’s sisterAngelica (who was actually already married by the time she first met Alexander). The musical features a diverse cast by design, with the founding fathers mostly played by people of color, despite the original historical figures being white. And of course, the founding fathers didn’t actually converse in song and rap (at least, as far as we know).

Hamilton uses the life of one of the lesser-remembered founding fathers to tell a story about ambition, legacy, and the personal costs of both. Here are the major changes that the musical makes to the real life of Alexander Hamilton.

Hamilton Didn’t Punch The Bursar

Hamilton What The Musical Changes About The Real Alexander Hamilton

Unfortunately, there’s no evidence that Alexander Hamilton actually punched the bursar of Princeton College (for starters, it was still called the College of New Jersey at the time). This part of “Aaron Burr, Sir” is mainly the product of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s love of wordplay and puns. Hamilton’s Princeton woes in the musical are based on a story recounted by Hercules Mulligan, which was first written down in the 1834 biography The Life of Alexander Hamilton. According to Mulligan, Hamilton was accepted to the College in 1772 only to have his admission revoked when he tried to pursue an accelerated course of study, like Burr had. However, there’s no written evidence to suggest that Hamilton was ever accepted to Princeton in the first place, or that his admission was revoked, so the veracity of the story is somewhat in question.

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Hamilton Traded Slaves For The Schuylers

Hamilton What The Musical Changes About The Real Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton’s relationship with slavery is more complicated than is portrayed in the musical. He was indeed an abolitionist, and one of the founders of the New York Manumission Society, which lobbied on behalf of enslaved black New Yorkers and promoted abolitionist policies. Hamilton didn’t own slaves himself; two slave boys were left to him and his brother in their mother’s will, but they never received this inheritance on account of their illegitimate birth. Hamilton did, however, trade slaves on behalf of the Schuyler family after marrying Elizabeth. Hamilton portrays its lead character as being a staunch abolitionist and voice for the enslaved, and it’s true that his views were progressive for the time. However, his hands weren’t entirely clean.

John Adams Didn’t Fire Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton What The Musical Changes About The Real Alexander Hamilton

In “The Adams Administration” it’s said that after coming to power, John Adams “fires Hamilton/privately calls him ‘creole bastard’ in his taunts.” The first lyric is not true. Hamilton actually resigned from his position of Treasury Secretary during the Washington administration, two years before John Adams became president. The latter carries more weight; according to Chernow’s book, Adams did indeed make derogatory statements about Hamilton, including referring to him as a “Creole bastard.” In a Medium article on Hamilton’s portrayal of John Adams, historian Dominic Martyne found that in letters that Adams wrote after Hamilton’s death, he separately described him as a “Scottish Creole” and the “bastard brat of a Scotch Pedler.”

Hamilton Wasn’t Confronted By Burr, Madison and Jefferson

Hamilton What The Musical Changes About The Real Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton necessarily has a limited number of characters, which means that some historical details are fudged to put the main characters in the middle of events that they weren’t actually part of. For example, Aaron Burr was not Charles Lee’s second in the duel with John Laurens, as depicted in the show. Similarly, while Alexander Hamilton was confronted about his payments to James Reynolds, leading to the publication of the Reynolds Pamphlet, the three men who came to him were not Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr and James Madison. Instead he was confronted by future president James Monroe, Virginian senator Abraham B. Venable, and Frederick Muhlenberg, the first Speaker of the House of Representatives.

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Hamilton Didn’t Retire From Public Life

Hamilton What The Musical Changes About The Real Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton gives the impression that the one-two hit of the Reynolds Pamphlet’s publication and the death of Philip Hamilton led Alexander to retire from the public eye. “It’s Quiet Uptown” sees him processing his grief in seclusion, while “The Election of 1800” suggests that he was reluctantly dragged back into politics by public demand for his opinion. This takes some liberties with the timeline. For starters, Philip Hamilton actually died in 1801, so obviously Alexander was not grieving his death at the time of the election of 1800.

While the 1797 publication of the Reynolds Pamphlet is portrayed as a career-ending scandal, Hamilton skips over the Quasi-War with France of 1798-1800. It was during this war that Alexander Hamilton was appointed the rank of major general, serving as the de facto head of the United States army. Despite some ill health he remained very active in his career, though in his final years he was more interested in law and political theory than everyday politics. Although Hamilton did move uptown in 1803, according to an account in Chernow’s book he continued to commute between his house and town – a three-hour round trip – four or five days a week.

Hamilton Wasn’t Killed Because of the Election of 1800

At least, not directly. Hamilton actually died in 1804, four years after his influence helped Jefferson beat Burr to the presidency. The real tipping point that led Burr to challenge Hamilton to a duel was the 1804 gubernational election in New York, in which Hamilton campaigned on behalf of Burr’s opponent, Morgan Lewis. It was only after he was beaten once again in a political race due to Hamilton’s interference that Burr wrote a letter demanding an apology, as depicted in the song “Your Obedient Servant.” Hamilton responded with his usual tact, saying that he couldn’t apologize for speaking ill of Burr because he wasn’t sure which instance Burr was referring to.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/alexander-hamilton-musical-life-details-changes-missing/

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