hamilton blog archiving
Dec. 9th, 2018 06:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sea_changed ETA: I just realized that tumblr corrupted all of the links, so all those I thought were so handily copied over are largely useless. Fixing it will take close to forever, but I hope to at some point; for now, the shorthand is that linked letters almost always lead to the Founders Online archive, which is very searchable; linked fics can be found on ao3; the inter-tumblr links all still work for now.
#annotations: Miscellaneous observational/meta posts
As for Jefferson, Diggs zeroed in on the Virginian’s ability “speak beautifully about freedom and liberty and own 600 people.”
“He was the kind of guy who could win over anybody with his prose. By all accounts he was a sort of meeker person, he was not necessarily a charismatic person. But his writing is undeniable. And that’s the thing we really wanted to show off,” Diggs said. “We wanted to try to create somebody who really honestly believes all those things. To me that [ability] had to come from a place of place of supreme privilege, that’s how he gets to have that swag and ease walking through the world. He never had to think about the survival element.”
- Daveed Diggs leaps to Broadway stardom in ‘Hamilton’ (The Times of Israel)
I think reading this quote [excerpted above] is the first time I’ve really registered the fact that the characters in Hamilton aren’t based on their historical counterpoints as people, they’re based on the words they left behind
Jefferson is obviously the best example of this because his musical character so clearly doesn’t match up to contemporary descriptions of him as shy, awkward, etc, but equally as clearly DOES match up to the character you would create of him if you only had his words–smooth, cocky, showy.
This is also super important for understanding musical Burr, I think: I’ve seen people talk about how hard it is to match historical Burr (lights himself on fire, constantly broke, clearly a fucking mess) with musical Burr, who’s smooth-talking and put-together and in every way a counterpoint to Hamilton’s messy brashness. but LMM literally explains their characters in terms of their writing: “Hamilton left behind 27 volumes of written work, Burr left behind less that two. And I think that sort of tells you everything you need to know.” (x - from this interview) That’s fundamentally what their characters are based on.
For this show that’s so fundamentally about the ways we tell stories and the way we all are remembered–and just as fundamentally about words and the power of language–I just think it’s a really fascinating choice to create characters out of words, not just on the craft level but on a greater meta level wrt what we leave behind.
(Original post, 11 February 2016, 15,000 notes)
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also, even while the musical gives eliza a voice where the historical record doesn’t, it also uses that silence as part of her character, too
it obviously subscribes to the idea that she herself burned many of her letters, and uses that self-imposed silence as a plot point/motif/what have you (”i’m erasing myself from the narrative”)
but also gives her agency and a voice, in a manner of speaking, even when she herself doesn’t have one–”it’s quiet uptown” is i think unequivocally about eliza, despite the fact that she doesn’t have a single line in it. so the musical preserves her silence and makes it a central tenant of her character, without losing her character in the midst of these other often very loud characters around her.
(which is not only a really clever historiographic thing specific to this musical but also i think a really neat argument for the place of fiction in history, tbh)
(Original post, 11 February 2016, 50 notes)
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i’m continually fascinated by the fact that burr calls hamilton “alexander” but hamilton never calls burr “aaron”; in fact, no one ever calls burr “aaron.” plus, in part because of the great burr/sir rhyme, hamilton continuously addresses burr much more formally than burr addresses him (”alexander”/”aaron burr, sir” is an exchange they have at least a couple times; it’s even starker in your obedient servant when burr addresses his first letter to “alexander” and hamilton addresses his reply to “mr. vice president”).
but what i finally ironed out looking at this is that burr calls him “alexander” when he’s talking to him and “hamilton” when he’s talking about him. this happens both when burr’s serving as a narrator and when he’s acting as a character in real-time, as it were (which raises interesting questions about the extent to which real-time burr in an extension or reflection of narrator burr, but that’s a post for a different time). when he’s inside his head or with other people (including the audience) he tries to remove himself from his own familiarity with hamilton.
he slips up twice: once in non-stop (”alexander joins forces with james madison and john jay…”) and once, most interestingly, in the world was wide enough, when he says, “when alexander aimed at the sky…” it’s the first time he refers to hamilton by name after shooting him, and after he switches back to calling him “hamilton” (”the world was wide enough for both hamilton and me”), but just for that moment the guard he’s put up against the audience/other characters/himself slips away and we see just how much hamilton meant (means) to him.
(Original post, added on to a post of an audio compilation of every time someone says Hamilton's name in the soundtrack, 12 February 2016))
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more stuff about names in hamilton, to springboard off that post yesterday:
- burr and hamilton both refer to each other by their full names and their surnames, but only burr ever calls hamilton “alexander”; hamilton never calls burr “aaron”
- in fact, no one ever calls burr “aaron”
- a bunch of people call hamilton “alexander,” though: burr, eliza, angelica, washington, laurens
- (angelica and eliza exclusively; the rest in addition to “hamilton”)
- only washington and eliza ever call hamilton “alex" (though the company does also, in the first song)
- and hamilton (and the continental congress?) is the only one to ever call washington “george”
- (though not to his face–actually, hamilton never even calls him “washington” to his face, only ever “your excellency” or “sir.” this is apparently historically accurate, btw–apparently historical hamilton was always overly formal in how he addressed him and only ever called him “sir” or “your excellency”)
- hamilton calls laurens both “laurens” and “john”
- mulligan is either referred to by his full name or last name
- lafayette is only ever “lafayette” or the “marquis de lafayette”
- madison calls jefferson “thomas,” as does burr
- madison is addressed by either his full or last name by everyone, including jefferson
- eliza refers to herself as “elizabeth” but no one else does
- maria is never referred to by anything but her full name
(Original post, 13 February 2016, 170 notes)
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top five favorite times hamilton says eliza’s name in the musical:
- rise up, rise up, ELIZA–my love, take your time
- ELIZA LONG AS I’M ALIVE I SWEAR TO GOD YOU’LL NEVER FEEL SO
- look around, look around, eLIza
- E L I Z A, i don’t have a dollar to my name
- i know i don’t deserve you, eliza, but hear me out, that would be enough
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i’m so obsessed with the fact that alexander sings his letter to angelica at the beginning of take a break over the satisfied melody
hamilton, the guy who literally interrupts other songs in order to sing his own name to its own distinctive melody/inflection, writes to her on a melody she’s already established as her own
i don’t know i just think that’s. really important.
(Original post, 19 February 2016, 130 notes)
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connected thoughts i have yet to figure out how to put together into a coherent post:
- burr and angelica are the only characters to serve as narrators in the show (burr throughout, angelica in it’s quiet uptown). (alexander is technically an exception to this, but he only narrates when burr gives him explicit permission–”i’ll let him tell it.”)
- burr and angelica are also the only characters to ever address the audience directly as “you” (”are you ready for more yet?” “you see it, right?”). (again, alexander is a possible exception–”that’s true”–but my personal pet theory about that line is still that it’s lmm momentarily breaking character to address the audience.)
- (satisfied actually is fascinating in the range of–perspectives? addressees?–it has. first verse is external, to alex and eliza (”a toast to the groom…”); the second verse is internal, to alexander (”but alexander, i’ll never forget the first time i saw your face”); the third verse is internal with no direct addressee (though the “you see it, right?” line at least suggests that it’s sung to the audience specifically, rather than the audience implicitly getting a look inside her head. no one sees inside angelica’s head without her permitting/filtering it); it stays that way until the second round of “to the groom!” and then goes back to internal with the final lines.)
- burr and angelica also split the “every other founding father’s story gets told / every other founding father gets to grow old / and when you’re gone who remembers your name / who keeps your flame who tells your story” line, which is explicitly from a narrator’s point of view.
- alexander and eliza are so intrinsically tied into the narrative itself (”what is a legacy?” “oh let me be a part of the narrative”) it’s as if burr and angelica, as their respective counterpoints, are somehow outside it
(Original post, 1 March 2016, 360 notes)
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say no to this is the one song alexander specifically narrates, and his is the only narration is the show that’s actively–intrusive, i want to say. he tightly frames maria’s lines, constant bracketing them with “she said”s that make it clear that it’s not her voice being heard, but his interpretation of her voice. maria never actually gets to speak for herself
this affects the rest of the song, too–he constantly frames himself as a passive participant in the affair, deflecting guilt off himself. it’s something happening to him that he has to say no to, rather than something he is willingly and actively participating in. even later in we know he phrases it that way: “she escorted me to bed.” he’s constantly thinking of his legacy and how he’ll be remembered/thought of/framed, so he does that framing for us so he remains sympathetic in his own story.
(Original post, 1 March 2016, 870 notes)
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so if the blank white costumes in the opening number represent the blank page hamilton will use to create his story, does that mean the all-black costume hamilton wears at the end of the show represents the end of his story, the page filled in with ink
(Original post, 2 March 2016, 210 notes)
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Anonymous asked: what's your interpretation of alexander's little "hi" to angelica in take a break?
i don’t know if i have an interpretation of it, really, but it fucking kills me. you can tell how transcendentally happy he is through this one tiny word–you can tell how happy they both are to see each other through just their voices. i love too that eliza and angelica’s greeting is so ecstatic: they’re giggling and shrieking and being just generally adorable, and just obviously thrilled to see each other.
and then angelica turns around and gives alexander a very different form of happiness: it’s just as obviously overjoyed but restrained in a different way. compare the very open, delighted way she sings eliza, next to the way she sings alexander–i know i’m partially just conditioned to hear it this way because it’s the same alexander from satisfied (but alexander, i’ll never forget the first time i saw your face), but there’s a longing in it that i think is really poignant. he’s standing right there: she hasn’t seen him in years and now he’s here in front of her but there’s still that restraint, that distance she’s put between them.
and then he gives her that little hi, which, like i said, kills me. on the one hand, he’s alexander goddamn hamilton, and all he can come up with is hi? but he doesn’t need to say anything else: i think to a great extent, even though they’re both such wordsmiths, most of alexander and angelica’s relationship goes unsaid between them. they talk about politics, they talk about eliza, they wind these convoluted literary analogies, but the closest they actually come to talking about or expressing their relationship is this very pedantic obsession over a comma.
so, angelica finally there with him again, all he can come up with is hi. which is adorable, tbh. and, after communicating expressly via letter for the past however many years, understandable: there’s a different way you talk to someone through text or in person. and then you can hear her smile in angelica’s it’s good to see your face, and it’s just! it’s a lot.
(Original post, 13 April 2016, 50 notes)
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still can’t believe that Alexander’s first words to such an intelligent woman as Angelica are basically “girl u need some dick” and we’re supposed to believe she was charmed
(Original post, 20 January 2017)
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what i like about hamilton on a metanarrative level: show is very aware of itself as a piece of historical fiction; creator talks frankly about the limits of historical fiction; structure of the show itself [insistent on actors of color, heavy use of rap] reflects on both medium [musical] and subject [the most mythologized part of American history] to call attention to inadequacies of both realities of medium [musicals/Broadway still very staid, hyper-traditional, white] and realities of how subject is discussed [*points to every single K-12 history textbook in the country*]; uses structure, medium, subject to argue that the story of America and thus America in the future cannot be complete without an inclusive reading of American history that uplifts the voices of those traditionally excluded from White Male American readings; does not seek to solve the problem that is the historiography of American history (not the show’s responsibility, it is not a historian) but attempts (and mostly succeeds!) to make nuanced comment on both it and the politics of memory
what hamilton fandom seems to get about 0% of the time: That part
(Original post, 23 February 2017)
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#dragchernow: or, I've read the Ron Chernow Hamilton biography twice and I have strong negative feelings about it
like i know chernow is bad at writing women but i came across this one singular page in the hamilton bio yesterday that just sort of blew my mind in how awful it was (it’s 133 in the paperback):
“Peggy was very beautiful but very vain and supercilious.” - literally “reducing women to their appearance and then mocking them for it.” also his one and only source for this appears to be that she married rich. literally six pages earlier he quoted the letter hamilton writes that’s like “yeah she’d better have money.” i just.
“Together, the two eldest sisters formed a composite portrait of Hamilton’s ideal woman, each appealing to a different facet of his personality.” - i literally wrote “fuck off” in the margin next to this. i hate it so fucking much. not only are they apparently not people in their own right but they’re not even complete people–they’re not even complete figureheads or icons or whatever chernow’s trying to turn them into here. not only do they only exist in relation to hamilton but they exist only in relation to what chernow projects hamilton’s fantasies to be.
“Angelica was more Hamilton’s counterpart than Eliza” and “Angelica [in the Trumbull portrait]…looks more sophisticated than Eliza” - i hate this bizarre virgin/whore thing apparently all historians have to do when talking about angelica and eliza, i hate it. comparing them intellectually literally gets us nowhere, and serves as this platform to simultaneously turn eliza into a dull housewife and angelica into a air-headed socialite (undermining, by the way, the intelligence JUST USED to pit her against eliza).
“Angelica had a more mysterious femininity than her sister, the kind than often exerts a powerful hold on the male imagination.” - aaand we’re back to women existing only in relation to men’s fantasies, i’m so glad. also “a more mysterious femininity” is just, so bad.
“A playful seductress” and “She was to serve as a muse” and “there was a gossipy irreverence about her” - look, besides the playful seductress one these are, comparatively, and on their own, not that bad. but they just so clearly underline chernow’s modus operandi when it comes to describing her (and, you know, women in general) that these small phrases that are peppered throughout his writing say a lot. again, they can only exist in relation to men, both intellectually (”muse”) and bodily (”seductress”); again, she’s portrayed as silly (”gossipy”).
“Unlike Eliza, she learned to speak perfect French. Where Eliza bowed reluctantly to the social demands of Hamilton’s career, Angelica applauded his ambitions and was always famished for news on his latest political exploits.” - again, we can’t talk about angelica and eliza without comparing them. the only way, apparently, to talk about angelica at all is through putting down eliza. unsurprisingly, however, the resultant portrait of angelica isn’t necessarily positive–they’re compared only so both of them can seem deficient.
anyway, that was just one page. i’m so damn tired.(Original post, 470 notes)
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yeah, sure.
basically, the way he talks about women, poc, and working-class people sets them up as separate and secondary from what he considers the “norm,” i.e. white men. the language he uses exoticizes, objectifies, and others them, setting them up in his narrative as “less than” the white male figures.
he does this a few different ways. first of all, the use of language on its own is super important in chernow’s books–he’s a journalist, and it shows. he tells a great story, and part of the way he does that is by heavily editorializing the facts he presents. which is not to say that he alone does this–you pretty much have to to craft a readable book, especially one that clocks in at over 700 pages–or that that in and of itself is bad. a big part of what historians do is create narrative from the facts and artifacts that have been left behind. but what that also means is that the way this narrative is created–and, fundamentally, what narrative you create–is extremely important and largely done though a) the sources you chose to put in and leave out, and b) how you interpret those sources and present them within your narrative–the more relevant point here.
so even what might seem to be small, inconsequential word or phrasing choices are not inconsequential at all, especially when they’re repeated throughout those 700 pages. chernow uses vivid and evocative language to craft an engaging story, but that same vivid language also drives home his views of the people he’s writing about. the book leaves “the reader…in awe of hamilton’s astounding abilities”; meanwhile, maria reynolds emerges as “incomprehensibly stupid.”
i talked here about how he talks about the schuyler sisters: he pits them against each other in a way that makes both of them look bad; in addition he can’t seem to conceive of them as people outside of hamilton. He writes that “Together, the two eldest sisters formed a composite portrait of Hamilton’s ideal woman, each appealing to a different facet of his personality” (page 133)–in his view, not only are they not people unto themselves, they aren’t even complete people.
his treatment of poc is the topic i’m least equipped to talk about, so if anyone has more examples or wants to go in-depth on this that would be great. there’s a quote on page 121, though, that i think really highlights the principle that even seemingly small word choices can have a huge impact on (and is a significant indication of) how women/poc/working-class people are thought of. Chernow writes that “About five thousand blacks eventually did serve alongside the patriots,” implying that the black soldiers were somehow not patriots–the patriots being by default, in his mind and now in the mind of the reader–white.
i talk here about the way he treats maria, which has a lot to do with the fact that she’s a woman but also a lot to do with class. in summary: chernow says at the beginning of the book that “to make the founders seem less remote” he’s going to edit their quotations in the books, correcting their grammar/punctuation/capitalization/spelling. however, he also says that he “occasionally retained the original spelling to emphasize the…curious education of the person quoted.” he doesn’t edit either maria or james reynolds’s letters, two of the very few working-class people in the book, and therefore creates an artificially dramatic dichotomy between them and hamilton (and the other politicians he quotes) that exoticizes and others them.
i hope this is what you’re looking for!
(Original post, 30 notes)
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#research tag: most of this is pretty esoteric if you don't care a lot about Angelica's kids
chernow mentions that “On October 12, 1788, [Eliza] and Alexander strolled with their children to the west end of Wall Street and had their three eldest–Philip, Angelica, and Alexander–baptized simultaneously at Trinity Church in the presence of the Schuylers, Baron von Steuben, and Angelica Church, who was visiting” (page 205).
it seemed weird to me that they–or at least eliza–would’ve waited that long to baptize their kids, and similarly weird that they wouldn’t have also baptized james alexander, who had been born a few months earlier on april 14, 1788. so i dug around a little in the trinity church archives, and here’s what i’ve come up with.
in fact, only angelica and alexander jr. were baptized on october 12, 1788: their records are here and here. there’s still a long time between their births and baptisms, though–alexander jr. was born may 16, 1786 and would’ve been nearing two and a half; angelica would’ve been even older, since she was born september 25, 1784 and would’ve been four. as chernow notes, angelica sr. is listed as a witness to angelica jr.’s baptism, so it might be that they wanted to wait for angelica to be there when they baptized her namesake (angelica left for europe in 1783). it still seems odd, though, and i can’t come up with a rationalization for why they would’ve waited so long for alexander.
james alexander wasn’t baptized on the 12th, but he was baptized two days later: i have no idea why. this wasn’t immediately after his birth, either–it was actually exactly six months since he was born. von steuben was there for this one (though contrary to chernow he isn’t listed among the witnesses for either angelica or alexander), along with peggy and stephen van rensselear. (the witnesses for the the october 12th baptisms are kind of wild: philip schuyler and hamilton himself witnessed both, and in addition both angelica sr. and catherine schuyler witnessed angelica jr., and gertrude cochran–the aunt angelica and eliza stayed with in morristown–witnessed alexander. with von steuben and the van rensselears around too, it sounds like a party.)
finally, though, philip doesn’t show up at all in the trinity church records at all. it turns out this is because–again contrary to chernow–he wasn’t actually baptized on october 12th, or at trinity church at all. he was baptized shortly after being born, while eliza was staying with her parents in albany–which means he was baptized in the dutch reformed church of albany, eliza’s childhood church and the one she and her siblings were baptized in, as well as the church where alexander and eliza were married (or at least the church where their marriage is recorded–they were as we know married in the schuyler house, according to dutch tradition). he was baptized february 11, 1782, less than a month after he was born on january 22 (there’s no way to link directly to the record, but click here and scroll down to [page 30] 1782 and it’s the second line).
(Original post, 20 April 2016, 30 notes)
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there’s a line in a letter angelica sent eliza, that i found in the columbia archives and i’m typing up and i’ll post the whole thing soon, but
there’s a line where angelica, referring to hamilton, tells eliza, “Tell him that I do not write to him, because I take so much pleasure in it, that I ought to do penance.”
like what kind of epistolary eroticism, what kind of religious eroticism, what kind of a fuckening line is that. i could write fic for years and not come up with a line that good. i had to go faceplant on my bed earlier, i am just in ECSTASIES over this fucking line
(Original post, 30 May 2016, 1470 notes)
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Ok, I think I’ve figured out the Eliza Church vs. Angelica Church issue, and it all falls on Angelica Schuyler Church’s sense of humor.
Because you see this?
I intended to have called my little girl Eliza after Mr. Church’s mother, but she thinks Angelica is a much prettier name. Mr. Church is also of that opinion, but I promise that the next girl I make shall be called Betsey.
She’s fucking joking (I love this woman; and I honestly wondering what else she was joking about to Eliza that people take seriously). I even checked my picture of the letter I took at Columbia to make sure this is what she’s really saying, and yep!
The child born in 1783 IS Eliza Church.
source: @books-and-whatever and her ancestory.com account.
Now, maybe that’s not enough. Understandable.
But her grave lists the same thing. Graves aren’t always accurate, but I think the baptismal record makes me comfortable with thinking she was born in 1783 and Angelica just has an interesting sense of humor.
So when was Angelica Church born?
Well, shout out to the anon for the reminder of this letter written by John B. Church to Alexander Hamilton in April of 1786*:
Mrs. Church is well; in about two Months she will give me another Boy or Girl
That would, indeed, fill in that gap between kids. Heartbreaking, though, to think they’d just lost Richard Hamilton. I wonder if that had an effect on Angelica’s pregnancy. We don’t know when she lost that baby, but still. :(
A reminder too of how incredibly lucky the Hamiltons were.
*I do have a moment of pause to wonder if this letter is somehow misdated and is really from the year before (two months from April would be June, when Richard was born), in which case we’re all thrown off again.
I will, of course, keep my eyes out for any references as I go through letters for the eliza papers.
all right, so.
there was definitely an elizabeth church born to john barker and angelica church, baptized on april 1, 1784, in yarmouth, norfolk, england. you can see the original record here: zoom in a few times and it’s the last entry under baptisms. (huge thanks to @books-and-whatever and @runawayforthesummer for the ancestry.com record, i would’ve never ever found this otherwise.)
this does in fact line up with the birth date given by both the schuyler mansion and her gravestone. however, it does not line up with the birth place her gravestone gives, which is paris. (i’ve complained before about this, but i can’t read her gravestone from the image provided, so i can’t check any of the transcribed info against the grave itself.)
however, this very well might not actually be a descrepancy: john b. church wrote a letter to hamilton dated february 7, 1784 (two months after elizabeth was born and two months before she was baptized), from paris; he wrote another letter, dated may 2, 1784 (a month after elizabeth was baptized) from london. so it appears that some time between early february and early may 1784, the churches moved from france to england, which would, somewhat miraculously, support both the gravestone and the baptism record–elizabeth was born in paris, but baptized in england.
as for yarmouth specifically, it turns out that the churches spent some amount of time there in 1784–in a july 24 letter to hamilton john churches mentions that “tomorrow we set out for Yarmouth to spend a Month by the SeaSide”; in a september 25 letter, two months later, church says, “Mrs. Church has spent six weeks at Yarmouth and bathed in the Sea, she has Received very great Benefit from it and her Health is much mended.” wikipedia tells me yarmouth was a seaside resort beginning in 1760, and while it doesn’t cite a source for that it seems to be accurate vis-a-vis church’s references to it. so it’s far from out of the question that they would’ve been there on april 1, 1784, to baptize their daughter.
(Original post, which is part of a longer thread, 6 July 2016)
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all right, further developments in the church kids saga:
i found a christening record for richard hamilton church that lists his christening date as august 7, 1786; it also includes his death date, march 30, 1787. this is all well and good, but it contradicts the schuyler mansion’s dates for him, which list his birth date as june 23, 1785, and his death date as march 23, 1786.
i’m inclined to trust the christening record just because it lists his parents’ names correctly and it’s from bray, bershire, england, which is where down place, the church’s country home in england, was located, so it makes sense in both location and specifics.
additionally, if richard hamilton church’s birth year was 1786 and not 1785, that would mean that the pregnancy john church mentions in this letter would match up with rhc’s assumed birth date. (church says “in about two Months she will give me another Boy or Girl” and the letter is dated april 5th, which would put rhc’s birth date some time in june, which would make sense if he was baptized in august.)
so, i don’t know where the schuyler mansion is getting their info (and, generally, it seems to be correct), but i think they might be wrong on this one. it’s also worth noting, though, how close their dates are–june 23 seems like a feasible birthday for rhc, and if the christening record is getting his death date from a burial record then his actual death date could very well have been march 23, and his burial date march 30. all that seems off are the years, which makes me think it could even be a typo.
(Original post, 7 July 2016, 10 notes)
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anyway i’m not saying anything definite but i’m at least part-way convinced that this letter is from june 1798.
going through hamilton’s letters to eliza there’s no other time that she goes to albany between august 1797 (when william is born, who’s mentioned in the letter) and november 1801 (when philip, also mentioned in the letter, dies*). this isn’t an infallible record, but he does tend to write to her multiple times when they’re apart and it seems likely, if not definite, that letters to her would have survived if she had gone to albany without him another time.
in addition, all the details of the letters line up, and while they’re not super specific or unique details the fact they they agree is encouraging: angelica says “my Brother and Philip dine with me today” and hamilton says “I dined with Angelica today— “ angelica writes that “When my Brother returned from the sloop, he was very much out of spirits” and hamilton says “My spirits were not very good—though every body tried to make my time pass pleasantly.” angelica writes, “Let me know how William bears the voyage, and if Angelica likes the water as well as her Father” and hamilton says “Kiss the dear Children with you for me.”
none of this is obviously hard-and-fast evidence, but it seems encouraging and at least possible. in addition, @runawayforthesummer did a great post here locating eliza throughout the summer of 1797, and she was evidently in new york definitely on july 21 and september 12, and probably in new york on august 17–that gives a less-than-a-month window for eliza to go to and get back from albany, and from hamilton’s other sets of letters to her while she’s gone her trips seemed to have lasted longer than that. not to mention, she had just given birth a couple of weeks earlier, and i’m not sure she’d be travelling at this point, especially with the infant.
i’d love to know if i’m totally off-base with this, so like, come at me. but it makes the most sense to me at the moment.
*it could be the churches’ philip in the letter, but from context i don’t think it is[The lovely runawayforthesummer on tumblr had come to the same conclusion around the same time, I was just behind on my dash. Her post is here, with a roundup of various related links here, which I don't feel comfortable archiving without her permission.]
(Original post, 27 July 2016, 20 notes)
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So returning to #2 in this post for a minute:
2. Similarly, love when biographies claim Eliza was in Albany and Angelica stayed in NYC the summer of 1789. That appears not to be true. If anything, Angelica was more often in Albany.
Let’s look at this. We actually don’t have that much, that I’ve seen, to go on over this summer! We know Angelica came in spring and left in November.
But let’s track some timeline stuff with what we do have:
On May 20, 1789, Philip Schuyler wrote Ham the following letter, in which he said:
Your anxiety that the Harmony of the family should be compleat, affords me the most pleasing sensations and I am happy that I can assure you that your wishes have been anticipated at least as far as immediately depends on me. Philip has visited me since his return from England he is returned to his wife with a message from me that will afford her comfort & confidence in my friendly intentions towards her. I have charged him to bring her here immediately on the Arrival of his Mother & Sisters—and since the receipt of yours and Angelicas letter announcing that she is to come by land, I have written Philip and Sally to accompany their Sister home… .
I sincerely wish better health and believe that a relaxation from business would tend to restore It and wish you If possible to find time to come up with my Eliza I wish here as many of my Children together as possible… .
Embrace my Eliza & the Children for me. Yours ever Affectionately &tc
(bolding mine)
So Angelica was planning to go to Albany, and go by land. That’s clear here, and that she’d hopefully bring her brother and his wife with her. For me, it seems Eliza was definitely planning to go, but possibly not with Angelica (although I want to believe they spent Angelica’s entire time here together because that would be adorable), since they knew when Angelica was going and how, and Eliza seems disconnected from that. I’m also kind of curious about the first line. If that’s just related to planning Angelica’s trip to her parents or if it related to getting Eliza to go.
Because the thing is, I’ve seen it from later summers, where Philip Schuyler spends two months convincing Eliza to visit before she finally does. I actually don’t think it was easier to persuade her to leave her husband.
One thing to note is we don’t know how soon Angelica is to head to her parents.
On May 28, 1789, Ham writes the following letter to Eliza:
I am miserable My beloved angel that I cannot yet come to you; but this abominable business still detains us & will do it for some days. I would willingly endure the fatigue of a journey to visit you, if it were but for a minute; but such is my situation and the expectation of those for whom I act, that I cannot get away for an hour. It cannot however much longer keep me from my beloved; and the moment I can I will fly to your bosom.
Engage the house on the conditions you mention. When I come to town I will examine the title and advance the money, if I find no legal incumbrance & impediment. Tell Mr. Barkeley this. Blessing without number upon you and my little ones.
(bolding mine)
To me, it doesn’t appear Eliza is leaving town anytime soon. She’s at least waiting for Hamilton to return and unfortunately we don’t know when that was as his next letter on founders isn’t until July.
But if she’s going, it’s not until sometime in June.
After that, everything is kind of quiet until July 29, 1789 when Philip Schuyler writes to Catharine Schuyler discussing a home he’s found for the family in NYC as he’ll be a senator. In the course of that letter, he also discusses how Angelica and Betsy are well. Both of them in NYC.
(Also interesting that Ham was seemingly heading to Albany since Eliza put something for her mother in his box to go along with him.)
On top of that, it’s interesting to note that there are no letters from Hamilton to Eliza during that summer. We all know his style. While those letters could’ve been lost to time, etc., it’s also just possible she wasn’t out of New York or wasn’t out of it very long.
So again, please biographers, tell me about Eliza spending the entire summer in Albany and Angelica spending the entire summer in NYC.
this is just background info, but i dug around a little more trying to figure out a timeline for angelica’s trip from london to new york, and i have exact dates!
john trumbull writes on march 10 that angelica “left London for Falmouth the 1st of this month, to go on board the Packet”; falmouth, england was the port used by the post office to send mail ships (packets) out from england. then, jefferson notes on march 14, 1789 that angelica “sailed for America in the packet of this month.” that means she would’ve departed falmouth on march 8, on board the tankerville.
the tankerville sailed from falmouth to halifax, nova scotia, landing after a six and a half week journey on april 22. after a few-days layover, where she had time to send a letter back to england, the packet sailed again on april 26, and after another two weeks, landed in new york on may 10.
which would’ve given her time to write to her father, as noted in the may 20 letter above; however, it also means that she would’ve missed washington’s april 30 inauguration, which chernow cites as one of the purposes of her visit. angelica traveled with three “servants” on her return journey and so presumably on her journey there, as well–it’s unclear whether these were in fact paid servants, or slaves.
angelica spent almost exactly six months in new york, leaving on november 6, 1789, this time on a direct ship from new york to england, landing on december 9 in falmouth. hamilton paid for her return journey, which cost $370.66.
(Original post, 14 August 2016)
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Alexander Hamilton to Eliza Hamilton, 1801
For these three days past we have been expecting almost momently the death of poor Margaret. She still lives.
It will give you pleasure to know that she has taken the Sacrament and that her mind is composed and resigned.
As soon as the event is decided I return.
You will easily imagine that in the state of things I can hardly speak to anybody about the grass-cuttings. But I will leave the matter in charge with your sister Angelica.
Ten thousand blessings upon you and your dear Children.
Ever yrs
A. Hamilton
March 13, 1801Source: Christie’s
i will fully admit that i SCREAMED OUT LOUD when i found this. i have a couple more things from christie’si’ll post in a minute here. i screamed a lot.
first: the transcription is theirs, but it checks out against the letters itself. if you click the link you can see an image of the actual letter.
okay, but. this letter is so goddamn sad. peggy’s still alive but she’s clearly about to die–she’d been sick for a while, and when hamilton got to albany in late february he wrote to eliza that “Your Sister Peggy has gradually grown worse & is now in a situation that her dissolution in the opinion of the Doctor is not likely to be long delayed.” she would die the next day.
“It will give you pleasure to know that she has taken the Sacrament and that her mind is composed and resigned.” i have nothing good to say about this it’s just. so sad.
i love that he says “your dear Children,” though, it’s very sweet.
(Original post, 16 August 2016, 20 notes)
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Alexander Hamilton to Eliza Hamilton, 1801
Albany Monday
24 FebrI wrote to you my beloved from Poughke[epsie] by post and yesterday immediately on my arrival by Mr. Ephraim Hank of the tribe of Benjamin or Judah. This letter enclosed one for Mr. Bayard. I hope it was received & forwarded. Mr. Burr, as a proof of his conversion to federalism, has within a fortnight taken a very active and officious part against Rensselaer in favor of Clinton. Tell this to Mr. Church.
And let me tell you what is of much more importance to you that I am in very good health though not in as good spirits as when I am with my beloved family.
Remember me affectionately to Angelica and accept many kisses for yourself and give one to each of my Children.
[unintelligible]
A.H.Source: Christie’s
all right, buckle in, folks. this letter is listed incompletely on founders online, taken from an incomplete copy at columbia and a dealer’s catalog from 1944, when it had been previously auctioned off. however, they list the date incorrectly as february 21–christie’s says it was dated february 24, and though the image on the christie’s site is frustratingly small, it does seem to be dated the 24th.
however, christie’s in turn incorrectly lists the year as 1800: in fact the van rensselaer-clinton gubernatorial race took place in 1801. in addition, hamilton was in new york in february 1800, as can be seen from his other letters of the time.
february 24, 1801 was actually a tuesday, but hamilton was confused about days of the week in the letter he sent eliza the next day, too.
here’s the letter he had sent her from poughkeepsie.
anyways i love him being snide about burr. (i love less him being snide about ephraim hank’s jewishness.) “And let me tell you what is of much more importance to you” is adorable!!
(Original post, 16 August 2016, 30 notes)
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The Orphanage: Women's Organizations and Eliza's Legacy
As we know from the Hamilton finale, the historical Eliza was very involved in what we’d now call charity work, which was in the early 1800s a field largely carried out by women. While there were mutual aid societies run by working-class women, a lot of these organizations were run by upper class, white, Protestant women, largely because those were the women who had the time to devote to these types of organizations. (There were also a large contingent of Black and Catholic organizations of this kind, along with some Jewish organizations as well, since the consequence of having charities run by white Protestants is that they would only provide aid to, you guessed it, white Protestants.)
Eliza herself became an officer in the descriptively-named Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children in 1805, the year after Hamilton died. Founded by Isabella Graham and her daughter Joanna Bethune in 1797, the Society grew out of at least some recognition of the fact that aid societies up to that point were very clearly marked by ethnicity–Graham was Scottish, and both she and Bethune were involved in the Scots-Irish St. Andrew’s Society, but they wanted to form a similar kind of aid society that would have a broader focus (though still, of course, within narrow confines of race and religion). [100-101]
I Help Raise Hundreds of Children
The year after Eliza joined the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows, she along with several of the other women involved in the Society, including Joanna Bethune (remember that name, she’ll come up later), split off to form the Orphan Asylum Society, to help the children of the women they had be aiding in the previous society. (This wasn’t a dramatic split: it was common for women to found and participate in multiple organizations.) Eliza was named second directress, below only first directress Sarah Hoffman: she was, essentially, vice-president. [111]
Though this varied somewhat between organizations, it was common for widows especially to serve in these types of charitable organizations, particularly if their children were old enough not to need them at home as much. Though the second Philip, the youngest Hamilton kid, would’ve only been three when Eliza was named second directress of the Orphan Asylum Society, she was otherwise a relatively typical member of this type of organization. Widows wealthy enough not to have to marry again also held clout in these organizations: they had been married and were therefore respectable, but had greater control over their own property than did married women (New York at the time of Hamilton’s death still recognized coverture, or the doctrine that a woman’s rights and property were legally her husband’s as long as they were married).
The Orphan Asylum Society opened their orphanage first in a rented building on Raisin Street, then erected a three-story building on Bank Street using $10,000 they had acquired from the state legislature, along with smaller private donations. [111] In 1818, Eliza got more money from the legislature to established the Hamilton Free School, the first school established in the Washington Heights neighborhood. [Chernow 729]
How Does A Bastard Orphan…etc.
Despite its charitable goals, however, the Orphan Asylum Society defined those goals within strict limits of what was respectable and what was not. Like most of these types of organizations, it was run by wealthy, extremely religious women, and their ideas of respectability were strictly contained. In addition to the limits of race and religion–only white, Protestant children were given aid–the Orphan Asylum Society also had specific ideas about family structure: most ironically, they didn’t allow illegitimate children to be housed in the orphanage. [82]
These rules were enforced not only because it was the structure the women had lived within their whole lives, but because women’s organizations walked a fine line between the ‘private’ world that women were supposed to inhabit and the ‘public’ world of men. By closely linking the work they did within these organizations and the work they did within the home (and family structure), the women who participated in the organizations helped to guarantee that they would not be seen as transgressing the public/private divide.
Another Fifty Years
After serving as second directress of the Orphan Asylum Society for 15 years, Eliza was named first directress of the Society in 1821. She continued in this role until 1848, when she moved to live her her daughter, Eliza Hamilton Holley, in Washington, D.C. At the time she left she’d been with the organization continuously since its founding, a total of 42 years.
Beginning in the 1830s the abolition movement began to gain traction within the world of women’s organizations. (Though this was more radical that most women’s organizations were interested in being, and abolitionist groups almost always sprang up separately from the aid- and morality-based women’s groups.) Chernow calls Eliza “a committed abolitionist” [Chernow 730] and it would be fascinating to know if she was ever involved in any of these abolitionist women’s groups (many of which included or were made up exclusively of white women), but I don’t know of any record that she ever participated in any of them.
Planting Seeds in a Garden You Never Get to See
Joanna (called “Jacky”) Bethune, who was mentioned above as the co-founder of the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows and one of the original members of the Orphan Asylum Society alongside Eliza, was a good friend of Eliza’s. “Both were of determined disposition,” Bethune’s son wrote about them: “Mrs. Bethune was the more cautious, Mrs. Hamilton the more impulsive, so that occasions of dispute did occur. But it was charming to see how affectionately these temporary altercations soon terminated in mutual embraces.” [quoted in Chernow 729]
Which is deeply adorable, but the reason I’m actually mentioning Joanna Bethune is that Bethune provides a fascinatingly complimentary narrative to Eliza’s. Bethune became deeply interested in, even obsessed by, the idea of legacy, after her mother (Isabella Graham, with her the co-founder of the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows) died in 1814. Graham was well-known for her charitable work and widely mourned on her death, and Bethune set to work reading her mother’s journals and letters in order to write a biography of her. At the same time, Bethune began writing an autobiography of herself, largely centered around her acceptance of religion after what she describes as a wild youth. [102]
These conversion narratives were fairly popular at the time, and Bethune’s wasn’t unconventional. However, she added a preface to her book that she later crossed out to the point of near-illegibility, justifying why she had written about herself, suggesting that her writings might end up printed in magazines, and hoping that her autobiography would be published after her death. [112-113]
While this doesn’t seem overly radical to us, seeking out recognition for her work would’ve been considered sinful pride by Bethune, particularly considering her deeply-held religious beliefs. It was shameful enough to her than she inked it out almost completely. [115]
This is obviously fascinating when held up against what we do and don’t know about Eliza’s life and legacy. Chernow can only speculate that she burned her letters, as there’s simply no record to go off of: in contrast, Bethune destroyed her writing in a way that leaves a very obvious record of that destruction. It also sheds light on the reasoning the historical Eliza might have had not only in destroying her letters but in remaining so quiet within the historical record, and in turn explain why we know so little about her and why she went almost completely unremembered for so many years. Pride and public recognition were considered sinful in Eliza’s deeply religious view of the world, not to be sought out.
This is even more interesting, of course, when held up against the historical Hamilton’s fascination and obsession with legacy that Chernow discusses. Even though Hamilton was often at least outwardly reticent about his own political involvement (he toys with the idea of quitting public life to spend more time with Eliza in multiple letters to her [Chernow 160-161]), at the same time he along with the rest of the Founders were very aware of their place in history and frequently preserved their letters and papers with the intent that they would one day be read and remembered–in a way that women of the time did not and, as Bethune illustrates, felt they could not. For Hamilton and the rest of the Founders, legacy was something to create: for Bethune and Eliza and so many other women, legacy was something to reject the creation of, quite literally burning and scratching themselves out of their own narratives.
Sources: Boylan, Anne M. The Origins of Women’s Activism: New York and Boston, 1797-1840 (2002)
Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton (2004)
[All page numbers in brackets are referencing Boylan; Chernow citations all have “Chernow” in front of the page number.]
(Original post, 130 notes)
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Angelica and Slavery
I’ll admit, at the risk of scaring people off, that this post is pretty massive. But I think it’s important information–or else I wouldn’t have written it up–and I think it’s information that shouldn’t just be swept under the rug.
To break it down a bit, my major points are:
- Angelica was surrounded from birth by enslaved people she was in a position of power over.
- She owned slaves herself throughout her adult life, at least five of whom we have a record of, and two we have the names of: Ben, whom she owned at some point in her early married life and possible came from her father’s estate, and Sarah, whom Hamilton bought for her upon her return from Europe and whom she freed, under duress, two years later.
- Hamilton definitely bought slaves for the Churches; he also, almost certainly, bought them for himself and his household.
- Overall, given her race and class, and pulling from a very scant documentary record, it seems that she held common and thus very racist ideas about black people throughout her life.
The Schuyler household would have had a number of enslaved people working in the house, not to mention those working on Philip Schuyler’s farms, and as the eldest daughter Angelica would have most likely been taught by Catherine Schuyler how to run a household that included and in large part depended on enslaved people to keep it running. The Humphreys biography of Catherine Schuyler notes that “For every department of the household there was a slave allotted. They hoed, drilled, shod horses, made cider, raised hemp and tobacco, looked after the horses and the garden, made and mended the shoes, spun, wove, made nets, canoes, attended to the fishing, carpentering… .” (38). Slavery was an integral part of life for wealthy white New York residents like the Schuylers.
Humphreys also notes that “each boy had his [enslaved] boy, and each girl her [enslaved] maid who was given to her on her marriage” (38). It seems possible that Angelica, along with her siblings, may have had an enslaved girl designated as her personal maid when she was growing up. Because she eloped, it’s unclear whether she retained this enslaved woman or any other property, human or otherwise, when she got married: she certainly wouldn’t have had a dowry in the same way she would have if she’d gotten married with her father’s permission.
The first direct reference to a slave that Angelica herself owned is to an enslaved man named Ben, in a letter from Hamilton to John Chaloner in late 1784. In a rather roundabout communication, Hamilton tells Chaloner that Angelica had written to Peggy asking that Ben be returned to her after she had “sold him for a term of years” to William Jackson. Jackson had been a officer in the Revolutionary War (during which, incidentally, he served as John Laurens’s secretary when he went to France) and later a business agent for Robert Morris in England. However, by the time Hamilton wrote to Chaloner, Jackson was living in Philadelphia, while Angelica was in Europe, which would have made sending Ben to her somewhat difficult.
It ended up not being an issue: Chaloner replied to Hamilton telling him that “Major Jackson declines parting with Ben.” He does, however, note that Jackson “says when Mrs Church returns he will let her have him should she request it but will not part with him to any body else.” It’s uncertain if Angelica took him up on this or not, though census records (discussed below) and the length of time before she returned to american–it would be another thirteen years before she moved back permanently–make me think she didn’t. Regardless, it’s interesting that Hamilton specifically says that Ben had “formerly belong[ed] to Mrs. Carter,” and that “she is very desirous of having him back again” (emphasis mine)–under the law of the day, of course, anything–or in this case anyone–that Angelica owned would have been legally owned by her husband, and it seems more likely that JBC would have carried out any business deals. Additionally, if the enslaved person in question was a woman, I could see how she might be considered Angelica’s personal servant and thus “hers,” but as it is I wonder if Ben was possibly one of the Schuyler family slaves that Angelica then took with her into her marriage. Lacking any information about Ben outside of his name and who he was owned by, I can’t give a very educated guess on this front, but it seems possible.
The next reference to enslaved people Angelica owned is five years later, in the receipt Hamilton received for paying Angelica’s return fare to England, after her visit to America in 1789. The receipt makes reference to “three Servants” that traveled with Angelica; while it’s possible they were in fact servants (paid labor), slaves were often referred to as “servants” to obscure the nature of their enslavement, and it’s quite possible that’s what was going on here. It’s unclear who these “Servants” would have been–presumably they were with Angelica for her entire journey, which would indicate that the Churches owned a number of slaves in England (Angelica presumably wouldn’t take all or even the majority of their slaves on her trip, which would put the number of enslaved people the Churches owned over six).
It should be noted that slavery was outlawed in France when the Churches were there, and in fact any slaves brought into France at the time were legally considered free. This was in practice much more complicated than it was on paper, of course, and French people, as well as people visiting France–most notably, of course, Thomas Jefferson–still owned slaves while living there. In England, however, slavery was legal, and would continue to be until 1833, and so the Churches may well have owned slaves in England while they were there.
In 1796 we come to perhaps the most controversial document in this post: the entry in Hamilton’s cash book under March 23, 1796, for “2 Negro servants purchased by [Philip Schuyler] for me.” This refers presumably to a letter Philip Schuyler had sent Hamilton seven months before, telling Hamilton that “The Negro boy & woman are engaged for you” (Chernow 210-211). Though Chernow allows some room for doubt, he ends up stating fairly unequivocally that this purchase of these two people was for the Churches (581). However, it seems extremely unlikely that Hamilton would have PS buy slaves for the Churches before he even began tracking down property for them–as Chernow points out helpfully, however unintentionally so, Hamilton didn’t even start looking for houses for them until late 1795 (581).
The next entry in Hamilton’s cash book noting his purchase of slaves–this time specifically for the Churches–references “a negro Woman & Child.” When Hamilton drew up a bill for JBC on his and Angelica’s return from England, he only listed the price of the “Negro Woman,” not the child. However, he charged JBC the same price as he’d noted in his cash book ($225 equaled £90 according to the exchange rate–2.5–that Hamilton used throughout the bill, compared to the corresponding cash book notations listed in the footnotes). I’m not sure what to make of that–Hamilton could’ve just omitted mention of the child with the understanding that he (if it was the same boy listed in the 1795/6 entry) was also included, which seems to make the most sense. He also could have died, and as he didn’t add any “value” the price wasn’t adjusted (enslaved people weren’t considered children for very long–I believe Annette Gordon-Reed says they would have been under twelve–so to be listed as a child he would have to have been pretty young). Alternately, Hamilton could’ve kept the child, though the steady price makes that seem peculiar (to contradict my above point, if Hamilton had wanted to keep him that would’ve meant he did have value such to lower the price listed on JBC’s bill).
It’s possible that the woman and child mentioned in Hamilton’s cash book are the same two people mentioned in Hamilton’s transaction with Philip Schuyler nearly two years before (because Hamilton’s cash book notation for the 1795/6 transaction lists himself as the debtor to PS and the notation for the 1797 transaction lists JBC as the debtor to Hamilton, its double notation wouldn’t mean it was double-counted in his cash book). There’s a slight discrepancy in cost–Hamilton owed PS $250 while he notes that JBC only owes him $225–it isn’t enough that it couldn’t be explained away by Hamilton paying PS a little extra for his trouble or by him giving his in-laws a discount. However, 1795 does seem extremely early for Hamilton to be buying things– or in this case people–in preparation for the Churches’ return. He didn’t start buying them real estate until early 1796. There are indications that he started looking around for them in early to mid-1795, which would be in line with his purchase of the enslaved woman and boy from PS, but that still doesn’t answer the question of why he would’ve bought them so early, as people, unlike real estate, cannot just be left alone for two years. Either they were still housed at PS’s until the Churches returned in May 1797, they were kept at Hamilton’s house, or they split time between the two houses. (Both the entry in Hamilton’s bill to JBC and the 1797 cash book entry are dated May 29, a week after the Churches arrived in New York, which would eliminate the odd time-gap if we assumed they’re not the same two people.)
What would seem to argue most persuasively that these two pairs of women and children were not the same–and that only the second pair was purchased for the Churches–is that two years later, an enslaved woman named Sarah is mentioned in the minutes of the New York Manumission Society as being owned by JBC. The record notes that “she was brought here from the state of Maryland about six years since by a John Salmon who sold him to John B. Church, A Hamilton was agent for Church in the business.” (There’s no way to link directly to the page, but it’s page 842, under vol. 7.) To me this makes her somewhat irrefutably the “Negro Woman” mentioned in the 1797 bill and the corresponding woman mentioned in Hamilton’s cash book. I don’t know what happened to the child: that they aren’t mentioned in the bill I can account to oversight but it seems almost certain to me that if they were still living as an enslaved person in the Churches’ household they would’ve been mentioned. Either they died, they were sold by the Churches to someone else in the intervening two years, they were freed by the Churches (without Sarah, who was very potentially their mother), or in fact they had never been enslaved by the Churches, and had either died, been sold separately, or kept by the Hamiltons.
I can be fairly confident the child would’ve been mentioned in the Manumission Society records if they were still in 1799 enslaved by the Churches because, in addition, the census data for 1800 lists the Church household as not owning any slaves. While it should be noted that this census record contains a number of oddities and thus should potentially be taken with a grain of salt, its documentation that the Churches owned no slaves in 1800 is extremely interesting, because, since we know from the Manumission Society records that the Churches had freed Sarah by the very next meeting of the Society (p. 843 of the records), it would appear that Sarah was the only slave the Churches owned by 1799. This makes more certain that the elusive child was no longer enslaved by them, but also further weakens the argument that the 1795/6 cash book notations for the enslaved woman and boy were purchased for the Churches.
It is always possible, of course, that these two slaves were in fact bought for the Churches, that Hamilton billed JBC for them in a document that has since been lost, and that they were both subsequently sold or freed–or they both died–some time between 1797 and 1799/1800. People are strange and often illogical and thus history is often strange and illogical, and just because a scenario seems to make less sense than another doesn’t mean it should be automatically discounted. That said, this scenario–that Hamilton bought two enslaved people from his father-in-law two years before his sister- and brother-in-law returned from Europe, in order to hand them over to his in-laws once they eventually made it to America–seems illogical to the point of being improbable. That Hamilton bought them from PS makes it seem even less probable–even if Hamilton had selected this woman and boy for the Churches to keep as slaves on their return, why wouldn’t they have simply stayed in Albany, awaiting the Churches’ arrival to be bought directly by JBC and brought to New York? Hamilton seems to have been engaged as the Churches’ go-between for the very practical reason that he was in New York (or at least the U.S.) and thus was better able to carry out business deals here, but that surely wouldn’t have extended to Angelica’s own father. (There was also evidently some concern over whether non-citizens could own property, but this seemed to extend only to real estate.)
By 1810, the Churches had acquired another enslaved person, according to the census record. I have no knowledge what this slave’s name was, whether they were male or female, or what happened to them when Angelica died and JBC moved back to England.
There isn’t much direct indication of what Angelica thought of black people or of slavery: I’m inclined to think, given the time, her race, her upbringing, and her participation in the slave system, that it probably wasn’t great. The one time she does mention black people in her correspondence is to mention the “terrors…of Negro plots” in reference to a rumor, which she evidently didn’t question, that enslaved people had been settling fires to various American cities in late 1796. (The fires really happened; that they were set by slaves was probably racist fearmongering.) Even people outspoken about the immorality of slavery were usually pretty racist: given that she appears to have had no moral qualms about the issue, I’m guessing that her views were equally racist, if not more so.
And that’s what I’ve got. If you’ve made it to the end of this massive post I applaud and appreciate you. If you know of any info that I’ve missed let me know: I’m sure I’ve missed something, and I always want to know more.
(Original post, 6 March 2017, 130 notes)
Responses:
no, that’s a totally valid point, and one i should’ve clarified–slavery was technically illegal in england when the churches lived there. which might make me be somewhat more willing to interpret the “servants” she was travelling with as paid rather than enslaved labor, but i’m not sure how to get around the chaloner letter–though obviously the whole thing feels sort of like an elaborate game of telephone, she clearly seems to be asking for ben, who is at that point enslaved, to be sent to her in england (or france, depending on how much earlier she wrote the initial letter, but slavery was illegal there as well, so the point still stands). so either a) she’s somehow unaware of the laws on slavery, b) she thinks she can get away with owning a slave anyway, or c) she plans on paying ben when he arrives. a) seems highly unlikely–she would’ve been socializing with people who in america would’ve owned slaves, and assuming that they weren’t all blatantly flouting the law, she would reasonably be like, hey, what’s up with the not owning people thing. i don’t have a good sense of the extent to which the law was ignored in either country, however–”to some extent” is almost certain, but whether angelica would personally do so/try to do so i’m just not sure about. c) seems plausible to me, as well.
which is basically a long-winded way of saying, idk. but thanks for bringing it up, and i’ll add a bit on it to the actual post.--
(2/2) people of color more as livestock than as human beings. Slavery at that time was a LOT more pervasive than people realize – anybody above impoverished owned at least a couple slaves to help around the house or business. I’ve likened it in the past to owning a car: most families own at least one, even though they may feel morally guilty about the carbon emissions they put into the ozone. The difference, of course, being that every person enslaved was one more person denied their rights.
you know, chernow mentions that letter, but i’ve never been able to find it (@runawayforthesummer?). i should’ve mentioned it anyway, though, thanks for reminding me. it’s definitely a good demonstration of how enslaved people were thought of, and really, angelica (and i’m pretty sure the rest of her extended family) weren’t any different than most white people of the time in terms of how they thought of enslaved people (and black people in general). shitty, but true.
--
I mean, it depends on what kind of fic you’re reading–the musical obviously exists in a whole different world than fic about the actual historical figures. If it’s fic about the actual historical figures, then yeah, it is a documented fact that the Churches owned slaves, and as far as I know there’s no evidence that Angelica was against slavery, and ignoring that feels distinctly disingenuous.
If it’s fic about the musical characters, than it gets a bit less clear-cut for me, because you have characters who proclaim anti-slavery sentiments to a level that is far from the documented historical fact for the historical figures they’re based on, and indeed the existence of the people enslaved by these historical figures, even those who played a specific and important role in the events being portrayed in the musical, are often erased in order not to draw attention to the fact the these figures owned slaves. (William Lee and Cato are the ones I’m particularly thinking of here.)
So it follows for me that if the characters of Washington and Mulligan don’t own slaves in the musical universe, Angelica probably doesn’t either. The musical is to a large extent invested in making a wide swath of historical figures into something they weren’t anyway, so at the end of the day, it doesn’t bother me in musical fic if writers follow what the musical is doing already.
(ETA: now edited based on @philly-osopher‘s on-point factchecking–thank you!!)
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#ask: misc fic meme replies, meta, scattered thoughts, a ficlet
Anonymous said: (thank you for coming up with a semi-workable solution to the side blog ask issue, love @iaintinapatientphase) 4, 5, 7, 9!
<3 <3 <3
How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?
so damn many. (too damn many.) um, 9 that i can come up with off the top of my head, but i’m sure i’m forgetting some.
you know about the angelica/maria cosway one, which i’m still yelling about. the one that’s killing me right now is this alex/angelica modern political marrieds au, where angelica’s running for senator and alexander’s a political operative but decidedly not working on her campaign (they have a huge fight about this, because all alex sees is i’m good and she doesn’t want me, and all angelica sees is if i win and he’s running my campaign everyone’s going to say i won because of my husband). there’s a bunch of personal drama and a bunch of political drama and a bunch of campaign-style total bullshit. there’s at least one gratuitous i love lucy joke. it’s so good! except i have like 15k of what’s a probably a ~50k fic, and at least a third of that is completely unusable anyway, and i just. cannot write plot. or things longer than like 5k. everything’s a damn mess.
Share one of your strengths.
yikes. um. probably my (hilariously overwrought, as mentioned below) style–i’ve worked long and hard for it and i think i’ve gotten it to a place now where i can semi-reliably get it to tell the story i want it to tell.
Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
The house is still in the heat, as if the thick summer air is holding its breath, waiting. The metallic scent of blood hangs heavy in the bedroom, clinging the the ceiling and the corners: Angelica listens to the harsh sound of Alexander’s breathing, lungs dragging in air even when she knows, they all know, how this is going to end.
(from frost season)
i’m bad at beginnings but this was a really good beginning–it captured exactly the atmosphere i wanted captured, the midsummer heat and the gruesomeness of alexander’s death. this whole fic is, i think, my best–it feels like me without slipping into the hilariously overwrought style i often end up in, it’s concise while still saying everything i wanted to say, the emotions and relationships all hit the notes i’d envisioned. i’m damn proud of it, tbh.
Which fic has been the hardest to write?
probably one of the ones i haven’t posted yet, honestly. actually, hands unclean was weirdly difficult–i literally woke up one morning with the idea for the “who am i?”/”the lady”/”who is eliza?” exchange and the title and the basic idea, but then it didn’t really come together. and then it did come together but it just. did not fucking work. so it sat fully-finished on my computer for weeks, and i would drag it out every few days and fiddle with it, and it still wasn’t any good, and i’d fiddle with it more and it still wasn’t any good. finally i pulled it out and did a deep edit of it, adding a bunch of stuff and taking away a bunch of stuff, and i’m actually pretty happy with the version i ended up posting.
THANK YOU YOU’RE GREAT @iaintinapatientphase
(1 April 2016)
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Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.
probably something short with no plot to speak of, based around a character/relationship study, excessively fussy language and too much reliance on equally fussy structure.
Talk about your current wips.
yikes. i already talked about the political marrieds au. that angelica/maria cosway one is going to be great, there’s painting and strolling around paris looking at art and a complete lack of tjeffs, thanks to historical accuracy that actually came through for me on that one.
there’s another alexander/angelica au that i’m dying about, basically the canon era version of political marrieds/an au of the show if it was angelica and alexander that got married. there’s one that i actually got inspired to write because of that fucking alexander hamilton’s wife book, about eliza and angelica and alexander and all the complications there.
there’s this goddamn rachel faucette story i’ve been trying to write since i first read chernow (four? months ago? i’m a mess) and i love it so so dearly and cannot for the life of me manage to actually write it.
there’s a companion piece to frost season because i love crying; there’s a thing about angelica the second and alexander post philip’s death. there’s one i can’t quite get a handle on that’s about eliza hamilton holley and her memories of her dad, compared to the memories her older siblings have of her dad, compared to the legacy her mom is creating around her dad.
i really want to write the fic about eliza that’s not at all about alexander. relatedly, i really want to write the fic about angelica and eliza’s relationship that isn’t triangulated through him. but those are much more in the rough idea stage.
thank you!!
(1 April 2016)
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oh boy, anon.
Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
i already answered this but i’ll answer it again because i’m a narcissist:
I wish you were here with me, he writes. I want. He presses the heel of his palm between his eyes, the wire bridge of his glasses biting into his skin, pressing up against bone. He wants and wants, has always wanted to much and too widely, hungered past his fill. That, if anything, Angelica understands. In that, if anything, they are the same.
(from inkstain)
this whole scene is objectively the hottest thing i’ve ever written, and i love this moment so much. this whole fic is about looking at someone else and seeing yourself, or, more finely, looking at someone else and understanding yourself better because of it. this isn’t the moment that explicates the (at least in this case) eroticism of that–angelica does that in one of the very first paragraphs–but it’s the moment where that becomes overpowering.
also, him pressing his glasses against his skin is such a Moment, i think because of the pleasure/pain thing and the awareness of his body–the bone under his skin–coupled with the largely intellectual eroticism of the scene. it’s the same thing the broken quill does–it makes what alexander’s convinced himself is something of an intellectual exercise startlingly present and real.
Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
“I’m not a kid,” Alexander goes on. “I’m not some—some unruly child who has to be reined in, okay. You’re the one who gave me this job. Treat me like a deserve it.”
“I’m sorry,” Washington says. He does understand, and even more he understands Alexander’s desperate need to prove himself, his constant insecurity. He doesn’t mention that, though—he’s never mentioned it, not even sure Alex quite understands why he is the way he is.
Alexander keeps talking like Washington said nothing. “Just because you know me shouldn’t mean—wait, what?” he says suddenly, like his mind just caught up to his mouth.
“I apologized,” Washington says, tone even so it won’t become amused. “I understand, and I’ll try to be better about it in the future.”
Alexander looks at a loss, like he doesn’t know what to do now he doesn’t have a battle to fight. “Oh,” he says finally. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Washington repeats. He reaches the reception area of the Oval Office, and pauses. “Was there anything else?
“No, sir,” Alexander says, somewhat stiffly. “Good night, sir.”
Washington nods to him. “Good night, Hamilton.”
(from memory)
sorry this is so huge, but this whole exchange is one of my favorites. mostly because i don’t ever write washington and hamilton, but i find the conversations they have in the musical itself really fascinating–they’re both so constrained by their own issues when they talk to each other–washington is by turns overly taciturn and angry, alexander is so desperate for the approval he won’t admit he wants–that their conversations are just endless landmines, which is i think how they view them, too. i really liked the idea that washington’s fondness for alex would come through sort of accidentally, and alexander in turn would see that as a slight. it felt very true to their particular brand of dysfunction.
already answered 9!
Which fic has been the easiest to write?
forgiveness, probably. i pretty much accidentally wrote it one day, was then like, huh, maybe i should post this, and that my friends is why i’m here today.
Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.
doing this for ham fandom feels weird, so, three fic writers over the years that have inspired me in whatever way:
1. candle_beck’s supernatural stuff. she’s pretty much the reason i’m the writer i am today–i learned how to write in the spn fandom, and she was the nexus of that particular crash course.
2. nthcoincident’s glee stuff. i say i learned how to write in the spn fandom, but i learned how to write well in the glee fandom, and her stuff remains just magical in its sense of atmosphere and character and the subtleties of the relationships she builds.
3. quigonejinn’s marvel stuff. you don’t see her influence in my stuff too much, because the inspiration i took from her was mostly a phase in my writing i’ve since abandoned, but she was super influential in terms of what was allowed in fic re: narrative construction.
THANK YOU.
(1 April 2016)
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thank you! and oh boy, do i.
the challenge demands satisfaction by magneticwave | gen, alexander/eliza
As his PR liaison continues to list all the ways that Alex is never going to be allowed to guest on Rachel Maddow’s show ever again, Alex painstakingly types out, THERE WILL BE BLOOD, and sends it to his wife. After a few seconds, he adds, Yes, I can pick up milk.
SO GOOD, so fucking funny, so fucking sweet. i’m pretty sure this is the first hamilton fic i ever read, back when there were less than a page of fics on ao3, but it’s remained one of my very favorites. for a while, between this and screamlet’s stuff, it looked like this style of fic was going to be the de facto fic style for hamilton fandom, and i remain super disappointed that that didn’t turn out to be true.
Frustrated Fists and Bated Breaths by biggestbaddestwolf | burr/hamilton, hamilton/washington
He can’t tell if the sting he feels is because something hit him, or if it’s just inside his head. You know, that dopey, dumbass mopey shit that won’t go away. Shit like this is how they leave you, that hits him in the face at high speed before careening off the rest of the universe and somehow returning again as sharp reminders of every other time this has happened.
this fic is so well-crafted and the style and characterizations are so excellently done: i can’t think of another hamilton fic quite like it. it does so much is very few words, but it sticks with you. one of my absolute favorites.
a combination of possible circumstances by magnificentbastards | hamilton/jefferson
To my annoyance this seemed to amuse the man, if the self-satisfied smile on his face can be taken as reliable evidence. He replied, deceptive in his geniality; “Come, Secretary Hamilton, I’m surprised you look askance; cuz surely you’ve heard how we close business deals in France?”
this fic is such a fucking delight. literally i reread it when i went to grab the link and just spent the entirety of it grinning stupidly; it’s so clever and it does such good things with style. the voices are spot-on.
What Might Have Been by BryroseA/@bryrosea | alexander/eliza, alexander/angelica
In the early days of their marriage she’d interrupt him when he got buried in his own head, “What are you thinking about? What are you writing?” Alex would stop and explain, words tumbling out of him, stacking up on each other, like the notes of the new Haydn sonata she’s been struggling to master; discordant chaos until the center—the heart of it all—becomes clear, then pure as truth.
i remember reading this christmas day and it’s stuck with me very clearly ever since. the relationships are all drawn so perfectly in both chapters, both clear and rich, and the dialogue style is unique among hamilton fic, which is a shame, because it works.
someone else’s story by iaintinapatientphase/@iaintinapatientphase | maria
“You can decide if you won or not,” she says, eyes shut tight against whatever is building in her mind, whatever’s forcing these words out of her mouth. “They can’t control you if you don’t let them. They can’t win if you don’t care. They can’t.”
a really painful, really excellent look at maria and hamilton’s relationship through maria’s eyes, giving her a voice and an interiority that she doesn’t get from the show and gets too infrequently in fandom.
We Keep Meeting by scioscribe/@scioscribe | hamilton & burr
When Theodosia died—when he was given the news of her passing—they all said he lost his mind—that he turned and screamed at the wall. Go and find her and bring her back, or what good are you? Why do I have you when I could have her? Why do you go on when she is gone? all the while pitching at the wall whatever came ready to his hands, teacups and books. He knew how he seemed to everyone else, but Hamilton’s eyes were all he cared about: Alexander Hamilton daring to weep for him.
i’ve been deeply enamored of scioscribe’s stuff since way back in the justified fandom, and so i was by default fucking delighted when she started writing for hamilton. this is one of my favorites of hers and my favorite of the ‘hamilton haunts burr after he dies’ genre; the scene i quoted above has stuck with me ever since i first read it, and the whole thing has a heavy, gray, aching feeling that’s hard to shake.
My heart is stone and still it trembles by holograms/@acanofpeaches | hamilton/burr
When Hamilton sees the soul-mark, he makes a sad noise, and then reaches forward and traces the phrase talk less, smile more with a trembling touch. His motions are delicate, as if he inspects it close enough he’ll finally have an understanding of Burr.
i’m very aggressively not a soulmate au person, but i’ll read pretty much anything holograms writes and i’m very, very glad i read this. exquisitely painful, the au really serves to explore and highlight their relationship in a way that compliments canon, and the tragic build of it is done excellently.
plus, wips i have my eye on:
fools who run their mouths off by scioscribe | hamilton/burr
the emotional lives of the characters are well-drawn and sustained chapter to chapter, and the characterizations are, as always, spot-on. it’s funny and weirdly sweet and very touching, and i eagerly await its weekend updates.
(and we’ll die in) the class we were born by Quietbang/@atshirtaway | hamilton/laurens
i was so excited when this started posting and it hasn’t let me down yet. i’m a sucker for political aus and this delivers beautifully, balancing greater politics with personal politics and relationships, and it manages to feel very emotionally true in the midst of its intrigue.
smile more by drunkonwriting | hamilton/burr
a true classic of our time. deeply hilarious but also strangely touching, trope fic done right. it updates very sporadically, but truly the first chapter alone can be read rewardingly as a one-shot.
born with this story, it’s older than I by digitalis | rpf
one of the best fics i’ve ever read in my life, and i’m only being like, 70% sarcastic.
(3 April 2016)
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[knocks head against desk, moaning softly]
(20 April 2016)
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eliza: who tells your story?
me, descending from the heavens with my meticulously tabbed and underlined copy of chernow: HOPEFULLY NOT THIS MOTHERFUCKER
(21 April 2016)
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my feelings about this are complicated, so bear with me here.
the short answer is “no, but.” there are some incredible, incredible female characters in hamilton, that lmm created and made alive, as characters. they aren’t their equivalent historical figures–none of the characters in this show are their equivalent historical figures–and so even if he was taking chernow’s interpretation of their historical figures straight from the page the final character wouldn’t resemble them anyway. does that make sense? the characters in hamilton were never going to be straight-up what was in chernow (or any history book), because, tbh, lmm’s a better writer than that.
but he definitely does take stuff from the book. the structuring of eliza ending the show–i believe he’s said flat-out he took that from chernow. which is great, because it’s one of the few things chernow does that i really like.
on the flip side of that, though, you also have the maria situation. chernow treats her awfully, and while i don’t have as big a problem with the musical character as i do with chernow’s representation of the historical maria reynolds, i’m still not a big fan of how she’s presented in the musical. it’s largely because of how her (one and only) song is structured–it’s clearly and specifically from hamilton’s point of view, which is basically why lmm can get away with characterizing her the way he does. and in some ways it can be seen as a necessity of the story, because if you tell that story from anyone but hamilton’s pov he comes out looking–i was going to say “bad,” but “even worse” is probably more accurate.
but honestly, i don’t want a narrative that’s structured so the man comes out looking good. i don’t care that it’s hamilton’s story–he’s going to come out in the end looking fine. it’s maria that’s going to get stereotyped and flattened and dismissed, especially when the musical itself is already doing a lot of that work for you. and that, i think, is drawn largely from chernow.
which is not to say that i don’t think jasmine cephas jones’s performance isn’t wonderful, or that i don’t think there’s more to the character–it is, and there is. but you have to work for it, work through hamilton’s pov to get there, and honestly, it’s more work than we should have to do to see the complexities of any character, much less a female character.
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god bless you, oh my god. my jstor access won’t allow me to read the actual article for some reason, but based on what you quoted, have some scattered thoughts:
- they had a son named alexander. kill me.
- “in his youth” is super vague, but it makes him sound slightly older (like, not a toddler) when he died.
- i’m happy there’s now some kind of verification that elizabeth was married to rudolph bunner, because i was getting twitchy about that headstone.
- i love the details about where john b. and richard lived, though.
- if alexander died “in his youth,” that might explain why the papers of alexander hamilton only list the churches as having five kids.
- assuming they’re being listed in age order (plus the PAH refer to john b. as the churches’ second son), alexander would’ve been the third son and could’ve easily been the son born in 1781, except a) alexander and eliza would’ve been married for under a year at this point and b) it seems like alexander would’ve definitely mentioned the kid being named after him.
- (sorry, sidenote. more weird things about that letter: hamilton compares him specifically to philip and “protest[s] against his being too much a rival”; this would seem weird if there was another son in between philip and the 1781 son, as the PAH editors think there is, listing john b.’s birth year as 1779. in addition, the PAH editors list a very specific birth date for the 1781 son–september 15–which makes me think they know who he is and just aren’t saying. i mean, alternately, he could’ve died young and not been named, though he appears to have lived at least a month, so that seems odd.)
- so, what if philip was born in 1778 (verified by his headstone), catherine was born in 1779 (from the geni profile), john b. was born in 1781 (wild speculation on my part), angelica was born in 1783/4 (from this letter), alexander was born in 1786 (he’d be the baby mentioned here), elizabeth was born sometime in late 1787 (more wild speculation: according to this letter angelica left paris in early 1788 and i refuse to believe that headstone is completely wrong), and then richard was born in 1798 (verified by the trinity church records).
- we’re still missing a kid if we’re trying to get to bielinski’s total of eight; we’d also be missing the kid he lists being born in albany. we also wouldn’t make it to a total of four kids before they left for paris, which i’ve seen a couple different places, unless angelica was born shortly before they left (angelica does refer to her in the letter to eliza as if eliza knows who she is, though there could very well be another letter we don’t have and it would seem strange that eliza wouldn’t know her name, if she was born before they left).
(11 May 2016)
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LEGACY
WHAT IS A LEGACY
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oh god, i have WAY TOO MANY thoughts on this au, i love it so fucking much.
but okay, listen:
- eliza standing next to alexander at the press conference where he resigns over corruption charges and a sex scandal that has the entire city talking, stone-faced and resolute
- the press calling her “saint eliza,” always with a screencap of her at the press conference, hair pulled back, in her plain dress with the high neck and long sleeves, looking plain and dutiful
- alexander being convicted of the corruption charges and going to prison; eliza pulling out the law degree she hasn’t used in fifteen years and getting a job at a big-name firm. she had gotten her degree because she’d wanted to help people, because she wanted to work for the aclu, but she met alexander in law school and they’d gotten married right after and then she was pregnant, and, well.
- but she’s good at this, and she makes a name for herself. she meets the firm’s investigator, maria, and for the first time in years she has a relationship with someone that’s not her family or her kids’ friends’ mothers
- (sidenote: okay, when i was explaining this au to my sister i was at this point like, maybe they’re lesbians? and my sister goes, uh, yeah they’re lesbians. so: i have no particular interest in having a will character in this au but WHAT IF eliza has the affair with maria
- their friendship grows into something more and eliza hasn’t had this is so long, a relationship that is all her own, and i think she would struggle with it and i don’t think it would necessarily be sustainable but it would give her something she hasn’t had in a long time and, like the alicia/will relationship on the show, give her a personal route of self-actualization to contrast but also connect with the other part of that that is through her work
- which would have the added bonus [spoliers: not a bonus] of making the alexander/maria reveal SIXTEEN TIMES MORE PAINFUL, holy shit, can you imagine)
- and like, it would be so good. it could be so good. i’m just continually screaming about it
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first of all: thank you so much, you are the sweetest.
second: yes! i made a reclist a while back with some of my favorite fics. plus, here, have a couple more i’ve run into since then that i love a lot:
the trap i set for you seems to have caught my leg instead by digitalis | hamilton/laurens
He found a pack of cards on his desk and set the deck out for solitaire but could not remember the rules. He sat on the fuzzy rug he had in front of the dead fireplace and built a castle. Two kings in their red capes forming the top of a tower. John flicked them, and they fluttered down, and on the way nicked the rest of it and it collapsed.
heed every single one of the warnings, this is not an easy read. i read a great swath of it with my hand literally covering my mouth–it is gutting, and awful, and very, very good.
teach me to reach you by Nakimochiku | angelica/burr
Angelica used to believe she was materialistic. She wanted money and power, the ear and arm of a man she could bend and push to greater heights, who would lavish her in exotic trinkets from India and France, who would take her around Europe because he could, who would — Write her poetry and consume her with flames. She knows now she wants only to be happy.
the very best angelica i’ve seen in fandom. this is really lovely and believable and has several really nice gutpunch lines. i love it a lot.
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also @ the other anon who asked for angelica-centered fic recs–i had a whole reply typed out for you and then tried to save it as a draft and tumblr ate it. but basically, yeah, the lack of angelica-centered fic in this fandom is a damn crime–part of the reason i started writing it was that i had such a need and fandom just was not coming through for me.
but there is some pretty good stuff once you start looking, so: angelica-centered fic recs, with a emphasis on alexander/angelica:
teach me to reach you by Nakimochiku | angelica/burr
Angelica used to believe she was materialistic. She wanted money and power, the ear and arm of a man she could bend and push to greater heights, who would lavish her in exotic trinkets from India and France, who would take her around Europe because he could, who would — Write her poetry and consume her with flames. She knows now she wants only to be happy.
the very best angelica i’ve seen in fandom. this is really lovely and believable and has several really nice gutpunch lines.
What Might Have Been by BryroseA | alexander/eliza, alexander/angelica
In the early days of their marriage she’d interrupt him when he got buried in his own head, “What are you thinking about? What are you writing?” Alex would stop and explain, words tumbling out of him, stacking up on each other, like the notes of the new Haydn sonata she’s been struggling to master; discordant chaos until the center—the heart of it all—becomes clear, then pure as truth.
i remember reading this christmas day and it’s stuck with me very clearly ever since. the relationships are all drawn so perfectly in both chapters, both clear and rich, and the dialogue style is unique among hamilton fic, which is a shame, because it works.
Consumed my Waking Days by sorcerous_encampment | alexander/angelica
“Alexander Hamilton, at a loss for words?”
“I’m trying to decide if I should tell her I’m in love with her and then punch Aaron, or the other way around.”
this is such a dumb au and i love it. also, about as old-school as you can get in a fandom that wasn’t even around this time last year. it’s delightful.
ambition give an hour by cartographies | alexander/angelica
Even more, there is a raw thread to his voice the exact tenor of which she has not heard before. When did he start being vulnerable with her, and only with her? She isn’t sure she likes the change. Alexander used to give his best self to her, or at least his sharpest and brightest, his words to her like knives handed blade facing outward.
a really nice canon-era fic between the two of them, with politics and emotions and a nice angelica pov.
Cyrano by godbewithyouihavedone | alexander eliza, alexander/angelica
It cannot be as it looks. The two flirt, but all think it is amusing. He has courted her only since the day they all met. There is no reason her sister should cry over him.
a really well-thought-out au–it fits perfectly into canon and draws nice parallels.
The Road Not Taken by TongueTiedandSqueamish | alexander/angelica
“Alexander,” she says, the first time she does so. It hits the ear in a solid wave, no syllable too hard or too soft but steady, confident, capable, full. “Dance with me?” She looks at him and restrains a quiet cry – his eagerness has melted at the edges into a malleable adoration that molds itself to her in a relief, knowing too much of her already.
a really nice rewind au–i really like the angelica and eliza stuff in particular.
Birds of Prey by stickmarionette | alexander/angelica and alexander/eliza
She selected one of the throwing knives from her belt holster. “I’m going to cut the ropes now.”
“Oh, must you? I was just getting comfortable.”
Angelica stopped with the blade of her knife poised over the rope binding his arms to the chair. “I could leave you here.”
another dumb au. i would read 50k of superhero!angelica/damsel-in-distress!alexander, let’s be real.
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you know, i think this is a really interesting question, and actually i’m in the middle of (and have been in the middle of for months, so like, they may not ever see the light of day) two different aus with this premise, one modern and one canon.
i think a lot of things would have been different, both good and bad: people talk a lot about angelica being on alexander’s “level,” which i think is an iffy way of putting it but i think gets at the fact that angelica is much more interested in the political and the public, while eliza is much more about the personal and the private. and i think in a lot of ways their marriage would be very dynamic: they’re definitely the people who get into long-winded and technical debates over the dinner table. but i think the flip side of that is that, at the risk of sounding cliched, they’re too similar. i think that while alexander wants his wife to be his equal (and would get that with either eliza or angelica) he also and perhaps more importantly wants her to be at home, with the kids. this is in large part chauvinism, but i think in equally large part a desire for what he sees as the ideal family, something he very much didn’t have growing up. and i think angelica in either time period would chafe at this (and not necessarily have realized it, going in): i think in canon au she’s very much a “let the governess handle them” type parent, and in the modern au i don’t think she’d want kids at all. and i think going into it this wouldn’t be something either of them realized: they have a pretty much literal love-at-first-sight story and i think if it did progress beyond the satisfied meeting it would stay very heady and very fast-paced, because that’s the type of person they both are. i think they would be good at being two people in love with each other, but i’m not sure if they’d be good at being a family.
related to that, i do think alexander wants a home to come home to, while angelica very much wants to break the bounds of the home and become as much a part of the political world as she can (in modern au she’s a senator, incidentally, but also being a woman in politics is very different than being a man in politics and i think even in modern au she would have a difficult relationship with that public/private divide). particularly in canon au angelica wants alexander to be not only her husband but someone she can live vicariously through; alexander wants her to be not only his companion (for lack or better word and re: the idea of companionate marriage) but his capital-w Wife in a very traditional sort of way. they both want (and expect) each other to more than they are, which is very them (they also each expect themselves to be more than they are), and also very wearing on any kind of relationship that doesn’t exist in the kind of restrained half-fantasy that their actual canon relationship exists in.
i do also think that, despite this, they wouldn’t have a bad marriage–i think at the end of the day they see something in each other that they also see in themselves and it’s hard to let go of someone like that once you’ve found them. i think they’re very good together in a lot of ways, despite a lot of the contention i talked about above.
to the second part of your ask: like i sort of talked about above i think their canon relationship exists in large part in a kind of fantasy world: they’re very constrained in how much time they can spend together and how close they can get to this thing between them they’re always dancing around, so i think–i think they don’t even really know what they feel for each other, if that makes sense? i think they care for each other very deeply and i think they both think about what they could feel about each other but again, it exists largely in their own imaginations. they both think they could be in love with each other, so does that mean they’re in love with each other? i think the question, the almost, is more of an answer than the answer is. not to be too grossly poetic about it.
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no, i honestly don’t think so. even if we take their flirtatious comments at face value–i.e. that they were a reflection of a genuine mutual crush (for lack of better term) and not merely joking or teasing–i still don’t see them as representative of some great hidden passion, but rather fondness and, like i said, a crush.
that said, my personal interpretation of their letters to each other tends to error towards the interpretation that their more flirtatious comments were teasing rather than in any way serious. to me their letters reveal a great fondness for each other–seemingly above and beyond what hamilton felt for the other schuyler siblings or what angelica felt for others of her siblings’ spouses–and a genuine attachment and friendship, but nothing that was really affair material. they liked each other, they teased each other, but the record of their relationship that’s survived gives me no indication that they slept together.
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i mean, honestly, just because i don’t think it ever happened doesn’t mean i’m not totally obsessed with them and their odd, fond, obvious affection for each other. i think theirs is a difficult relationship to pick apart, and to me ruling out sex from it–which i obviously can’t do with 100% surety, but even so–it leaves us with a complex relationship with lots of nuances to tease out. (also, even if i do land firmly in the “they never slept together” camp, sex can’t be ruled out completely–i mention epistolary eroticism in this post, and like, clearly sex was present in their letters, even if it was joking or teasing.)
all of that said, i will say too that every biographer i’ve run into that entertains the idea of an alexander/angelica affair seems to do so not as the endpoint of a genuine analysis of their letters and relationship (which tbh i would be interested in reading), but as way to devalue both eliza (dull housewife) and angelica (sex object). they’re not actually interested in analyzing the dynamics of the angelica-eliza-hamilton relationship, they’re interested in putting the women in boxes that don’t require them to have their own feelings and motivations. (and in addition, doesn’t require and in-depth discussion of eliza and angelica’s relationship, which we have so much material on, at least from angelica’s side, and would seem to be an essential point of discussion.)
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honestly, no one seems to be able to quite figure out who john church was as a person. i feel like i don’t necessarily come down on either side on this; i think a lot of possible faults (didn’t do so well on holding down a regular job/managing money, prone to dueling, seems to have been a corrupt politician) wouldn’t necessarily bother angelica, and clearly at least in the beginning it was a love match. i’m continuously mad we don’t have any letters between him and angelica, because i think that would give us a lot more information we just have no access to at all. we don’t have any indication it was a bad marriage–i think a lot of what you’re talking about comes from the musical, which tbh doesn’t bug me (creative license, etc. etc.); of all the people i’m going to expend energy defending, john church is honestly not one of them.
it’s hard to say if there was drama, because any record of it very well might not survive/exist in the first place, but they seem to have been good matches for each other–they seem to have liked the same people, they were both very social, etc. the existence of richard stephen seems to indicate they had a pretty healthy sex life, even a solid twenty years after they got married. my ultimate perception/gut feeling was that their marriage was comfortable–steady, amiable, maybe somewhat superficial, but not bad. that’s very much my own opinion, though–honestly, we just don’t know.
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The worst of it is not the having-done, Alexander next to her in her marriage bed, their skin tacky with sweat and the nauseous, choking guilt in her throat, the cold leaden feeling around her bones. There is something galvenizing in that feeling, the knowledge that she has done an awful thing and now, now she knows, now she’ll never do it again. The opportunity for rebirth, the ashes out of which she could create some forgiveness for herself. Harsh, slimy soap, the kind her mother had taught her to make as a girl out of fire ashes and tallow, scooped up in finger-fulls to wash herself clean.
The worst of it, she knows, is the doing, the about-to-do, Alexander’s face wide open with lust and his hands on her ribs, his hands in her hair, his palm against the edge of her jaw and saying angelica angelica low-voiced against her mouth. Almost a moan, something closer to a plea, always a reminder that she is the wrong sister, the unchosen. It is then that she should know to pull away, to summon her great strength of will and step back from him. Better, when their looks catch, across the table, across rooms, she should be the one to look away. To leave the table, leave the room.
She left the country and it didn’t help but still, she thinks, if she were only better, if she were only good, she would turn her back on him. Or if she were–not worse, but stupider, if she could block out completely the guilty pull inside her chest and call it a whirlwind of passion, say that she just lost her head and came up gasping and hadn’t the faintest how it could have happened.
Even in her worst moments she would never wish herself stupid, so she supposes this is–not better. Perhaps, selfishly, better. Would she rather be stupid or immoral? She knows the answer, and it’s not one of the better things she knows about herself.
Alexander’s eyes on her, Alexander’s hands on her, Alexander’s mouth on her: each a gradation of betrayal, but each able to be forgiven; or at least acquitted, in whatever court might try her case. At every moment there is a way to stop, a divergent road, and so the worst part, the very worst, is the simple act, each small choice leading her down one road and not the other. Knowing each action and not stopping, not because she is blind to herself or her deeds but because, she thinks in the worst times, she doesn’t care enough. She is too bold and selfish and yearning, to desperate for something to make her whole.
It never works. She thinks, if she were truly as smart as she likes to think herself, she would stop trying. That she doesn’t, that she knows she won’t; she doesn’t know what that says about her.
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listen, i’ve written like maybe 300 words of fic over the last six months, so no promises, but i just!! i’m super interested in her a creating a character for her and getting into her perspective and her thoughts, so like. it might happen.
(alternately, consider: the be-all end-all of everyone lives aus, where mm lives, rachel lives, laurens lives; rachel and mm move to new york post-revolution; dramatics occur. the mm part of it would be hella depressing bc honestly she and laurens are by nature hella depressing, but consider: mm and eliza bonding (!!), mm and rachel bonding (!!!), rachel and eliza bonding (!!!!), figuring out what alexander and rachel’s relationship would be, elams love triangle awfulness, i could go on. [stefon voice] this au has everything.)
oh man, thanks. and always feel free to send me messages on here, i know i’m terrible at posting nowadays but i do see and love and try to reply to them.
i am also extremely shook about it in general, and yes, i yelled at that line. i’m especially interested in in because it comes along with one of the “do you know what angelica said”s as well: there’s that flash of pure bitterness but it comes paired with the fact that in this version of events she still was with (went to?) angelica when everything happened. this whole version of the song is about the anger she’s feeling–the knee-jerk reaction, but not necessarily an untrue one. i think i’m most interested, not in the fact of her bitterness (and i’m not even sure it’s jealousy), but in its pairing with the reinforcement of her and angelica’s relationship despite.
and i think that’s a really crucial, central thing about the whole angelica/alexander/eliza situation: with all the various shit going on and the various feelings that are being sublimated on all sides, angelica and eliza in the midst of that are always putting each other and their relationship first.
but along with that, i also just really, really love it on its own. i love the spite in it: she’s not even really saying it as a jab at the alexander/angelica relationship itself, but just to add it to the laundry list of things he’s failed her in, and to take a jab at his overreaction: she puts up with this shit every day, and doesn’t fly off the handle about it. the sharp point of it is not in that she notices the alexander/angelica tension (of course she does), but that she has the perspective and maturity and emotional fortitude to know that it’s not worth throwing her family away for.
but of course, i also love the articulation of the fact that she sees what’s going on (even if it’s entirely emotional, which in canon it is) and is bitter about it, even underneath all that perspective and emotional maturity. it’s nothing you can’t put together with the final version of the show and an understand of eliza’s character, but it’s gratifying to have it in an actual lyric.
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Thoughts on seeing Hamilton 9 March 2016 with the OBC
scattered hamilton thoughts:
- during the first “say no to this” verse maria gets very, very close to hamilton, almost kissing him but leaving just enough room that he can still sing. it’s pretty much the hottest moment of the show.
- relatedly, though, the most erotic moment of the show is hands-down the moment alexander kisses angelica’s hand, in satisfied. the whole company gasps. you feel it, like a thickness in the air.
- he tries to replicate the moment in the reynolds pamphlet, leaning down to kiss her hand, but she pulls away from him. she doesn’t stay away, though: she gets in his face while she sings her verse to him, not moving away until she finishes her last note. his eyes are on her the entire time.
- (this almost-but-not-quite mirrors their staging in that verse of satisfied–you strike me–when, after he kisses her hand, they speak/sing to each other standing so close they’re almost touching. they are touching–alexander keeps hold of her hand after he kisses it. their magnetic closeness is noticeable both times, but with obviously very different tones.)
- renee belting that last “to your union” is Something Else
- renee in general sounds pretty much exactly the way she does on the album, it’s incredible. leslie is the most noticeably different, i think–the softer, sung stuff is very similar, but the louder, rapped stuff is much more nasal/growly, closer to the grammy video.
- (lin’s voice sounds so tired. it miraculously doesn’t affect the quality of his performance, but it comes out particularly in his sung stuff, and really underscores the fact that he doesn’t really have the typical broadway voice.)
- lin is so good, you guys. just. the way he holds his body is somehow exquisite–when he’s standing next to eliza in it’s quiet uptown you can feel his complete anguish just from the way he’s standing, stiff, with his shoulders bent and his chest caved in.
- when eliza takes his hand in it’s quiet uptown he breaks down, sobbing once before pulling himself together. she rests her cheek on his shoulder; he looks at her and it’s like. i don’t know. the depth of emotion between them is palpable.
- on a slightly happier alex/eliza note, though, lin and pippa put their arms around each other as they walked offstage after curtain call, it was deeply adorable.
- they cut the coattail flip in non-stop, i feel personally victimized.
- yorktown is so good in person. it’s like you’re at a rock concert, you can feel it in your goddamn chest.
- as on the album, the only tone shift that really works is from the reynolds pamphlet to burn. it’s not like, les mis level tonal inconsistency, but it can be hard to switch over. i had the most trouble going from it’s quiet uptown into the election–it felt actively jarring, and i had a hard time bouncing back.
- eliza’s scream at the end of stay alive. fucking chills.
- hamilton and laurens are great together–there’s a moment directly post-duel where hamilton pulls laurens to him and checks his chest for bullet wounds, it’s Very Much. also, soon after that, when washington says “these young men don’t speak for me,” laurens goes to say something or go over to washington–he steps forward–and hamilton holds him back. they also hug in between there somewhere, it’s quite the thirty seconds.
- right after philip schuyler gives his okay in helpless angelica and peggy go over to alexander–he and angelica takes each other’s hands and almost dance together for a moment, and he and peggy hug, it’s super cute.
- speaking of the schuyler sisters and cuteness–during the schuyler sisters they’re constantly holding onto each other–eliza rests her head on angelica’s shoulder, and takes peggy’s face between her hands at one point. also, during satisfied there’s a moment when peggy and eliza are off to the side together–peggy’s helping her get ready for the wedding–and they do the thing where you touch noses, it’s so cute.
- chris jackson walks onstage and you sit up straighter. is voice is unreal.
- meet me inside is really good. hamilton is standing at attention (actually at ease, technically, but clearly in a military stance) and says the first couple “don’t call me son”s looking straight out, not at washington. he breaks at “well i don’t have your name”–he turns to washington and gets right in his face. by the time he gets to “call me son one more time” washington’s turned away from him and hamilton’s at his shoulder, and hamilton’s…anguish, i guess, is noticeable. he shrinks back when washington turns to him, though, and curls in on himself. his sir– is very quiet, and he actually has another, very quiet, very devastated “yes, sir” after washington’s final go home.
- leslie broke during the beginning of the adams administration–king george stays on stage for a bit after i know him, and does this frankly indescribable little dance-shimmy thing, burr looks over at him in one point, and you could hear the hitch in leslie’s voice as he started laughing, it was hysterical.
okay, so:
- in take a break hamilton’s desk is set up on one side of the turntable, the piano on the other side. as they transition into say no to this the piano goes offstage, and three streetlights come out. hamilton ends take a break/begins say no to this sitting at the desk.
- as hamilton begins the song maria enters, and walks along the outer edge of the turntable until she reaches the other side of the stage and she begins her first line, as if she’s reached hamilton’s door.
- around “that’s when i began to pray” they get very, very close: she’s basically kissing him, only staying far enough away that he can still sing
- hamilton sings “i wish i could say that was the last time” out to the audience, then james reynolds enters and also does his part out, standing across the stage from hamilton.
- at “i hid the letter and i raced to her place” they’re center stage and she falls to her knees in front of him: he crouches down in front of her on “i am ruined.” he stays down for “i am helpless–how could i do this?” gesturing out almost wildly. he’s driving his point home but they’re very close to each other, and it’s also strangely intimate.
- a chorus member brings out a chair, and hamilton sits down in it. maria follows his an gives him basically a lap dance during the “no”/”yes” part
- at the end hamilton gets up, and comes down stage, handing james reynolds money on “nobody needs to know”
- james reynolds exits, slapping his leg to get maria to come like you would a dog. she follows him out.
