Anyway, I'm so with you on this. The music is fantastic. The history and the real-life people...not so much. And the ad hominem arguments about Jefferson being a slave owner annoy me--especially since, as you said, Hamilton wasn't doing shit to oppose slavery. Not to mention...Washington (whom Hamilton spent a lot of time working for) was not only a slave owner, too, but a pretty awful one according to Mount Vernon:
Sources offer differing insight into Washington's behavior as a slave owner. On one end of the spectrum, Richard Parkinson, an Englishman who lived near Mount Vernon, once reported that "it was the sense of all his [Washington's] neighbors that he treated [his slaves] with more severity than any other man." Conversely, a foreign visitor traveling in America once recorded that George Washington dealt with his slaves "far more humanely than do his fellow citizens of Virginia." What is clear is that Washington frequently utilized harsh punishment against the enslaved population, including whippings and the threat of particularly taxing work assignments. Perhaps most severely, Washington could sell a slave to a buyer in the West Indies, ensuring that the person would never see their family or friends at Mount Vernon again. Washington conducted such sales on several occasions.
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Mount Vernon’s enslaved community took opportunities, when possible, to physically escape their enslavement. For example, in April of 1781 during the American Revolution, seventeen members of the Mount Vernon enslaved population—fourteen men and three women—fled to the British warship HMS Savage anchored in the Potomac off the shore of the plantation. In other instances, members of the enslaved community who were directly connected to the Washingtons either attempted to or were successful in their escape plans. These individuals included Washington’s personal assistant Christopher Sheels, whose plan to escape with his fiancée was thwarted, the family cook Hercules and Martha Washington’s personal maid Oney Judge, both of whom escaped successfully.
Yet this never gets addressed in the musical. Washington is, as usual, treated like the greatest thing since sliced bread.
But then instead of what I was expecting, which was something along the lines of Eliza going full-out a-certain-point-of-view "he went and got himself killed for stupid man reasons so it's my right to finish the narrative he started however the hell I want to", I got, "Oh no, my husband is dead, so I'm going spend the rest of my life honoring his memory because what else is a woman without a husband good for amirite or amirite?"
There's actually a hell of a lot more to Eliza than the musical shows. She and the kids were left dead broke when Hamilton died; he was heavily in debt, as a matter of fact, and those debts had to be paid out of the non-existent estate. She wouldn't even get his army pension until thirty-three years later, and that required a special act of Congress. And then her father died four months after Hamilton died. (Which helped, because he left her some money, but the emotional toll must have been huge.) I can just picture Eliza wanting to fire 1804, because that was an awful year for her.
Even though Elizabeth spent her widowhood in poverty, she was active in charitable organizations. She held positions in the New York Orphan Asylum Society and founded orphanages in New York City and Washington, D.C. She was known to take homeless children into her own home.
Less than two years after her husband’s death, on March 15th, 1806, Elizabeth and a small group of women had gathered to form the Orphan Asylum Society to care for children who were orphaned from epidemics of cholera and yellow fever. Their mission was clear, “To help the afflicted and the needy others have forgotten; to provide them with the education and training they need to become productive, contributing members of society: to help them realize their capacity for happiness and success which belongs to all human beings.…” On May 1, 1806 they opened the doors of the Society’s first home, a rented two-story frame house on Raisin Street. Twelve orphans were admitted in the first six months and by the end of the year, 200 orphaned children had been admitted... and the rest, as they say, is history!
There was more to Eliza than merely "preserver of Hamilton's memory." I do feel that Miranda could have, y'know, MENTIONED that in the final song.
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Anyway, I'm so with you on this. The music is fantastic. The history and the real-life people...not so much. And the ad hominem arguments about Jefferson being a slave owner annoy me--especially since, as you said, Hamilton wasn't doing shit to oppose slavery. Not to mention...Washington (whom Hamilton spent a lot of time working for) was not only a slave owner, too, but a pretty awful one according to Mount Vernon:
Sources offer differing insight into Washington's behavior as a slave owner. On one end of the spectrum, Richard Parkinson, an Englishman who lived near Mount Vernon, once reported that "it was the sense of all his [Washington's] neighbors that he treated [his slaves] with more severity than any other man." Conversely, a foreign visitor traveling in America once recorded that George Washington dealt with his slaves "far more humanely than do his fellow citizens of Virginia." What is clear is that Washington frequently utilized harsh punishment against the enslaved population, including whippings and the threat of particularly taxing work assignments. Perhaps most severely, Washington could sell a slave to a buyer in the West Indies, ensuring that the person would never see their family or friends at Mount Vernon again. Washington conducted such sales on several occasions.
:::
Mount Vernon’s enslaved community took opportunities, when possible, to physically escape their enslavement. For example, in April of 1781 during the American Revolution, seventeen members of the Mount Vernon enslaved population—fourteen men and three women—fled to the British warship HMS Savage anchored in the Potomac off the shore of the plantation. In other instances, members of the enslaved community who were directly connected to the Washingtons either attempted to or were successful in their escape plans. These individuals included Washington’s personal assistant Christopher Sheels, whose plan to escape with his fiancée was thwarted, the family cook Hercules and Martha Washington’s personal maid Oney Judge, both of whom escaped successfully.
Yet this never gets addressed in the musical. Washington is, as usual, treated like the greatest thing since sliced bread.
But then instead of what I was expecting, which was something along the lines of Eliza going full-out a-certain-point-of-view "he went and got himself killed for stupid man reasons so it's my right to finish the narrative he started however the hell I want to", I got, "Oh no, my husband is dead, so I'm going spend the rest of my life honoring his memory because what else is a woman without a husband good for amirite or amirite?"
There's actually a hell of a lot more to Eliza than the musical shows. She and the kids were left dead broke when Hamilton died; he was heavily in debt, as a matter of fact, and those debts had to be paid out of the non-existent estate. She wouldn't even get his army pension until thirty-three years later, and that required a special act of Congress. And then her father died four months after Hamilton died. (Which helped, because he left her some money, but the emotional toll must have been huge.) I can just picture Eliza wanting to fire 1804, because that was an awful year for her.
But in addition to polishing Alex's reputation and preserving his papers and letters, guess how she spent her widowhood?
Even though Elizabeth spent her widowhood in poverty, she was active in charitable organizations. She held positions in the New York Orphan Asylum Society and founded orphanages in New York City and Washington, D.C. She was known to take homeless children into her own home.
PBS goes further, saying that she founded New York's first private orphanage in 1806. Graham-Windham.org has this to say about the woman who founded one of the orphan societies that eventually merged to form Graham-Windham:
Less than two years after her husband’s death, on March 15th, 1806, Elizabeth and a small group of women had gathered to form the Orphan Asylum Society to care for children who were orphaned from epidemics of cholera and yellow fever. Their mission was clear, “To help the afflicted and the needy others have forgotten; to provide them with the education and training they need to become productive, contributing members of society: to help them realize their capacity for happiness and success which belongs to all
human beings.…” On May 1, 1806 they opened the doors of the Society’s first home, a rented two-story frame house on Raisin Street. Twelve orphans were admitted in the first six months and by the end of the year, 200 orphaned children had been admitted... and the rest, as they say, is history!
There was more to Eliza than merely "preserver of Hamilton's memory." I do feel that Miranda could have, y'know, MENTIONED that in the final song.