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Glaring Historical Errors in the Smash Musical “Hamilton”
Great entertainment, but great history?
Ever since the debut of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash Broadway musical more than five years ago, Alexander Hamilton has been America’s favorite Founding Father. Not surprisingly, given that the musical is entertainment based on history and not history in a documentary sense, quite a few myths about Alexander Hamilton have sprung up in the wake of the musical’s global success. Today we’ll set the record straight on some of those myths.
First let me make clear that I really enjoyed the musical personally, mangled history and all. I’m thankful for anything that can get people interested in history, and in a perfect world everyone who saw the musical would immediately read Ron Chernow’s massive biography of Hamilton, the book that inspired Miranda in the first place. Sadly, we don’t live in a perfect world and since that’s not likely to happen, I need to point out some important areas where revisionist history has crept in, unintentionally or otherwise.
Let me also make clear at the outset I will not be tagging the use of actors of color as revisionism. We all know the Founding Fathers were white, but this is a creative adaptation and there’s no reason why someone of Puerto Rican descent can’t play Alexander Hamilton or Black actors…
