I thoroughly enjoyed watching Hamilton on Disney+ with my kiddos yesterday. I was fortunate enough to see a production on tour in Houston, and we had tickets to see it with my son in June, but due to covid that was postponed till January, and right now I doubt we’ll be seeing it in January. So this was the next best thing. In some ways it was better because we had a better view of the actors’ faces than we otherwise would have! Anyway, while I haven’t read extensively on the Hamiltons, I did read the Ron Chernow biography of Alexander Hamilton, and I read a biography on Eliza Hamilton. While I’m not exactly in a “rah-rah America” mood right now, for this 4th of July, sit back and enjoy some facts about a Revolutionary Era woman.
-Of his children, Eliza was the one her father trusted to help him negotiate with the Iroquois Indians and she was given an Indian name. Relations with the American Indians were far from ideal (European Americans definitely shoulder the blame there), but at that time there was hope that they could find a way to co-exist. I also think this demonstrates how Eliza went on to take control of Hamilton’s legacy at the end. While you don’t get a hint of this in the musical, it seems as though she herself was a savvy diplomat.
-She loved nature and being outdoors. She was the Laura Ingalls Wilder child type who was a bit wild, not in the partying way like her sister Angelica, but running barefoot through the woods or riding a horse without a saddle wild type. When she was 80 she went on a transcontinental trip and went mountain climbing. She was one tough old lady!
-Her mother, Kitty Schulyer, was a Revolutionary War Heroine who burned her fields to prevent the British from taking over her farm.
-While this is impossible to prove, I suspect Eliza may have had dyslexia. She had trouble reading and spelling, which apparently was a source of frustration and embarrassment to her. I suspect that she was smart but because they had no idea what learning disabilities were then and how to help, she likely thought of herself as stupid (people with learning disabilities usually have average to above average intelligence). Reading her biography her struggles will sound familiar to people who have a learning disability. And considering that Eliza was surrounded by brilliant people, not being able to spell and read well must have been hard.
-While Angelica Schuyler has a shining part in the musical, whatever brilliance she possessed did not make it in Eliza’s biography. Angelica comes off as a spoiled affluenza case who made a horrible marriage decision because it followed the romance literature of her day. In contrast, Eliza comes off as level headed and smarter than the sister that she was considered to be less smart than. Which makes me wonder what Eliza would think of the lens through which history has viewed her.
-While Hamilton was fighting the Revolutionary War with Washington, Eliza and her sisters were far from safe at home. While she and Angelica were both pregnant their house was invaded by British soldiers and it was through the quick thinking of Peggy that they were saved.
-After her son, Philip Hamilton, was killed in the duel, her daughter, Angelica Hamilton, had a mental breakdown. Likely she developed schizophrenia. Schizophrenia can develop without trauma, and Angelica was at the right age for symptoms to develop, but there is no doubt his death was the catalyst and likely exacerbated her conditions. She never recovered. Once again, they didn’t have a good understanding of schizophrenia then and how to help (you could argue that this has not changed much).
In summary, there was more to Eliza than the kind doting wife and mother she is portrayed as. She was a flesh and blood woman who had her own passions and interests, her own insecurities, and her own tragedies. And through it all she persevered.
