as a ne’er-do-well bouncing from enterprise to enterprise, losing money at every turn, and no longer able to support his family. Historian Ron Chernow in his book Alexander Hamilton (on which the musical is based) characterized Hamilton Sr. Because he was not first or even the second in line to inherit his family’s estate, he sought his fortune elsewhere, which ultimately led him to the Caribbean in the 1740s.

The fourth son of 11 children, Hamilton Sr. James Hamilton abandoned his sons, James Jr., 12, and Alexander, 10, around 1765 after the family had relocated to St. “The ten-dollar Founding Father without a father.' Alexander recovered, but his mother died. Both Alexander and Rachel fell ill in 1768 with a fever. Years later, Lavien sought an official divorce, and in his petition, he painted Rachel in the worst possible terms: She had left her family and “given herself up to whoring with everyone” and that if he died, she would take his estate and “give it to her whore-children.” The divorce settlement decreed that he could remarry but that Rachel could not, meaning that her sons with James Hamilton would be illegitimate in the eyes of society. Kitts without taking her son and obtaining a legal separation. She left the marriage, and Lavien had her thrown in jail for several months. Before meeting Hamilton, Rachel was unhappily married to an older man, Johann Michael Lavien, with whom she had one son. Alexander was born to Rachel on the Caribbean island of Nevis around 1757, the second of her two sons with Scottish immigrant James Hamilton. Rachel Faucette is never referred to by name in the musical, but her spirit looms large from the show’s opening lines. “How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman.” The lyrics allude to their presence, but history shows the bigger roles they played in the lives of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Some of them are still name-dropped in the show, while others don’t appear at all. In order to keep the action moving and the story tight, author Lin-Manuel Miranda had to make some tough choices and leave certain characters off stage, even though they had major impacts on the real-life story. Aaron Burr, friend and nemesis of Alexander Hamilton, narrates the tale, taking the audience from Hamilton’s humble origins, through his meteoric rise, to his tragic fall.

history lesson about the first Secretary of the Treasury with rousing beats, moving melodies, and a compelling story. In 2016, the unlikely musical Hamilton took the United States by storm, packaging a whirlwind U.S.

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