Yes, this is the book that inspired the musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Although I was not inspired to break into song when I finished reading it, it is an impressive tome. I had not read any biographies of other Founding Fathers, so there was a lot that I found surprising in this book.
The author starts with Hamilton’s origins in the Caribbean, which sounds like a major genealogy challenge. Between the fact that Hamilton did not discuss his origins in great detail, the records themselves must have been difficult to find, after all this time. We are all familiar with the burned courthouse scenario, but in the case of small, tropical islands, hurricanes were also apparently an issue. He also mentions “illiterate insects” damaging some documents. However, I found the section on Hamilton’s early life to be one of the most interesting parts of the book.
In addition to describing Hamilton’s role in the revolution and subsequent creation of, well, many of our government institutions (according to Chernow, anyway), you also get a glimpse of higher education at that time, of how someone of Hamilton’s class would court their future spouse, the challenges of travel in the colonies and states, and the level of medical expertise. From some of the instances related, if Hamilton had not become a lawyer, he might have been an excellent doctor!
Reading this book made me realize how little I know about early American history. Of course, I learned about the Revolution and the Constitution in grade school, and I have heard about the Federalist papers, but this book goes into so much detail, both with regard to Hamilton’s participation in the War, and his participation in the political life of the country afterwards, both officially and unofficially. I think what surprised me the most was how chaotic politics was in this era. And I don’t remember hearing that after the country was founded, that the principal participants didn’t all still get along. I knew there were political “parties”, but I didn’t realize how rancorous the divisions were! Chernow describes how people worried about foreign interference, or even one or another country taking over the US; there were sex scandals, and various people published brutal, and not always accurate, depictions of individuals in the other party, and of course, there were duels. Except for the dueling, for many of the situations described, you could almost change the names, and think it was current events, not history. There is nothing new under the sun.
If this was your family, how would you research them? As I mentioned, the research in the Caribbean must have been challenging. The author apparently enlisted the help of local experts, which is something we should probably consider for our own research on occasion. On the other hand, a research trip to atropicalisland might be a fun thing! So far, the ancestors I have been able to track back that far have come directly from the Old World, and I never really considered that they might have lived anywhere other than what became the US. If they participated in the Revolution, the DAR has any number of records to refer to. As to whether ancestors were Federalist or Republicans, I’m not sure that could be pinned down with any accuracy. The region of the country they lived in at the time would be a major factor in that. I know that one of my ancestors was a member of the Populist party in the late 1800’s-early 1900’s in Kansas, because of articles in the newspaper at that time.