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wyntir_knightI want to start this out with full disclosure, I am not a person of colour and I have never actually seen Hamilton, I've only listened to the soundtrack.
So I will be the first to admit that "Hamilton" is brilliant, but the more I listen to the soundtrack the more problematic I find it becomes. I know that this is going to sound awful, but for all its multi-racial cast, Hamilton succeeds in white-washing history. I say this because of key people who are missing from the story and aspects of the story that are glossed over.
So, people who are missing:
Sally Hemings. Yes, I know she's mentioned in "What'd I miss" and I think she gets a ballet(?) but she disappears after that. For those who may not know, Sally Hemings was one of Thomas Jefferson's slaves. She mothered six of his children and was half-sister to Jefferson's wife. She was placed as "friend" to Jefferson's daughter and he probably began his "relationship" with her when she was fourteen years old. ... Actually, let's call it what is was. He began to systematically rape her when she was fourteen. Because you know she didn't actually have the ability to consent. Not when her rapist was her master and held the power of life and death over her. And for all his talk of despising the institution of slavery and claiming that he was trying to bring it down, he never freed Sally. That fell to one of his daughters; who also happened to be Sally's niece.
Cato. He was Hercules Mulligan's slave and he was the one who got the messages out past British lines. He was the one who was risking his life on a daily basis to get that intel out and into the hands of those who needed it. And we have no idea what happened to him. He was jailed along with Mulligan after the Culper Ring was discovered (after Benedict Arnold defected), but beyond that? No clue. It's possible that Mulligan freed him, after all, Mulligan was a member of the New York Manumission Society. But then again, so was Hamilton and yet he had no problem marrying into a slave-owning family and aiding in the sale of said slaves. So who knows. History lost him after 1781.
I wanted to add Crispus Attucks to his list, but the fact of the matter is, the musical doesn't take place in Boston and that makes it difficult to name the first man killed in the Revolution. A man who was also of mixed African and Native American heritage and quite possibly a free person of colour. Difficult but not impossible.
Parts that are glossed over:
Hamilton was not anti-slavery. Yes, he was a member of the New York Manumission Society, but he helped the Schuylers buy and sell their slaves. The play also makes no mention of the fact that both Washington and Madison were slave owners and that Washington did everything he could to circumvent Pennsylvannia's Gradual Abolition Law. Residents were required to free their slaves after six months, so Washington would ship his slaves back to Mount Vernon every six months and get a new batch in so he was never required to free them. And yet, Jefferson is the only one actively shown to be a slaver. Because he's the bad guy and anything else disrupts the narrative.
I know that the play is a work of fiction, that it's a heroic retelling, but Lin-Manuel Miranda (whom I do love) wrote a musical and cast people of colour in almost all of the roles because these are people who don't often see themselves on stage and were integral to the American Experience. And then he ignored those same people in their historical context. He effectively wrote them out of the narrative. If I was being uncharitable I might be tempted to accuse Miranda of effectively putting the Founding Fathers into black face in order to create diversity.
Oh, and Alexander Hamilton wanted to see Washington declared President for life and basically named King George the First.
So I will be the first to admit that "Hamilton" is brilliant, but the more I listen to the soundtrack the more problematic I find it becomes. I know that this is going to sound awful, but for all its multi-racial cast, Hamilton succeeds in white-washing history. I say this because of key people who are missing from the story and aspects of the story that are glossed over.
So, people who are missing:
Sally Hemings. Yes, I know she's mentioned in "What'd I miss" and I think she gets a ballet(?) but she disappears after that. For those who may not know, Sally Hemings was one of Thomas Jefferson's slaves. She mothered six of his children and was half-sister to Jefferson's wife. She was placed as "friend" to Jefferson's daughter and he probably began his "relationship" with her when she was fourteen years old. ... Actually, let's call it what is was. He began to systematically rape her when she was fourteen. Because you know she didn't actually have the ability to consent. Not when her rapist was her master and held the power of life and death over her. And for all his talk of despising the institution of slavery and claiming that he was trying to bring it down, he never freed Sally. That fell to one of his daughters; who also happened to be Sally's niece.
Cato. He was Hercules Mulligan's slave and he was the one who got the messages out past British lines. He was the one who was risking his life on a daily basis to get that intel out and into the hands of those who needed it. And we have no idea what happened to him. He was jailed along with Mulligan after the Culper Ring was discovered (after Benedict Arnold defected), but beyond that? No clue. It's possible that Mulligan freed him, after all, Mulligan was a member of the New York Manumission Society. But then again, so was Hamilton and yet he had no problem marrying into a slave-owning family and aiding in the sale of said slaves. So who knows. History lost him after 1781.
I wanted to add Crispus Attucks to his list, but the fact of the matter is, the musical doesn't take place in Boston and that makes it difficult to name the first man killed in the Revolution. A man who was also of mixed African and Native American heritage and quite possibly a free person of colour. Difficult but not impossible.
Parts that are glossed over:
Hamilton was not anti-slavery. Yes, he was a member of the New York Manumission Society, but he helped the Schuylers buy and sell their slaves. The play also makes no mention of the fact that both Washington and Madison were slave owners and that Washington did everything he could to circumvent Pennsylvannia's Gradual Abolition Law. Residents were required to free their slaves after six months, so Washington would ship his slaves back to Mount Vernon every six months and get a new batch in so he was never required to free them. And yet, Jefferson is the only one actively shown to be a slaver. Because he's the bad guy and anything else disrupts the narrative.
I know that the play is a work of fiction, that it's a heroic retelling, but Lin-Manuel Miranda (whom I do love) wrote a musical and cast people of colour in almost all of the roles because these are people who don't often see themselves on stage and were integral to the American Experience. And then he ignored those same people in their historical context. He effectively wrote them out of the narrative. If I was being uncharitable I might be tempted to accuse Miranda of effectively putting the Founding Fathers into black face in order to create diversity.
Oh, and Alexander Hamilton wanted to see Washington declared President for life and basically named King George the First.