Hamilton: 5 Things Lin Got Wrong
- Elizabeth Down
- Dec 27, 2017
- 3 min read
I must admit, the title is a bit misleading. I'm sure that most of these things are the result of artistic choices rather than mistakes- however, they can cause some problems when fans take the musical's historical narrative as gospel. Here, I’ll try to stick to concrete differences between the musical and reality instead of speculation and theories.
1. Angelica Schuyler Church
Ah, yes. The infamous comma placement scenario really did happen! But it’s very unlikely that she would have even considered marrying Alexander Hamilton because she was already married to John Barker Church, and had been since 1777, years before Hamilton met the Schuylers in 1780. They were very affectionate in their letters, but that wasn’t unusual for the time as letters between in-laws could be just as affectionate as letters between blood relations and still be socially acceptable.
2. John Laurens
Personally, I think the musical vastly understates the extent of Laurens and Hamilton’s relationship, but that’s a matter for another time. However, the main change between the musical and Laurens’ reality is his relocation from the Battle of Yorktown to South Carolina. It makes sense, narrative-wise, to not have him present at the battle so that his (spoiler) death is a lot more convenient in the plot and can happen off-stage (it’s true that he did die in South Carolina). At Yorktown, Laurens was in fact a major player in the US victory and was one of two negotiators representing the US in the British surrender negotiations after the battle. He was definitely not in South Carolina.
3. Philip Hamilton
In the musical, Philip grows up, fights in a duel and dies all in one song. A couple of songs later, the election of 1800 where Thomas Jefferson becomes President (and Burr Vice-President) takes place. In real life Philip died in 1801. This one’s pretty self-explanatory- Lin’s messed around with the timeline a bit for pathos’ sake, but in all honesty, it doesn’t pose much of a problem historically.
4. Martha Washington’s Tomcat
In ‘A Winter’s Ball’, it is claimed that Martha Washington (wife of George Washington) named her tomcat after Alexander Hamilton. This one definitely isn’t true, but we don’t know where the myth came from. One common story is that it came from John Adams, trying to discredit Hamilton and give him a reputation as a scoundrel. However, there is little evidence of this. Also, at the time a tomcat was only a male cat, and the phrase didn’t have the same connotations that it does today. The first use of this story appeared almost 60 years after Hamilton’s death in a satirical letter, which doesn’t agree with musical Hamilton’s claim that ‘that’s true!’.
5. The Revolutionary Gang
Everyone’s favourite famous four (excluding ABBA)- John Laurens, Hamilton, Lafayette and Hercules Mulligan. The best of friends and #squadgoals. Or were they? In reality, they probably never met all together at the same time. Granted, Lafayette, Laurens and Hamilton definitely did when they were all aides-de-camp to George Washington, but never with Mulligan as well. He spent most of the war in New York working as a tailor not fighting battles alongside the ‘gay trio’ (a contemporary nickname, not one I or online fandom have come up with).
Of course, none of these things take away from the overall affect of the musical, and generally it is historically sound. But some sacrifices have to made for the art, right?
Comments