Not Recommended: HAMILTON (the musical)

In 2017, I saw Hamilton in Chicago. Before I went, I listened to the soundtrack and studied the lyrics. Today's post is my notes on the lyrics. As you might expect, they are rooted in who I am: a Native woman who has spent the last 30 years studying and critiquing representations and misrepresentations of Native people.

I did a short thread on Twitter after I saw it in 2017. In August of 2016, Dr. Adrienne Keene, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, published Where are the Natives in Hamilton at her blog, Native Appropriations. I would especially like to link to Native critiques of Hamilton. If you know of one, please let me know. I'm also interested in critiques by anyone who is also asking where the Native people are in the musical. If you've had conversations with others about Miranda's erasure of Native peoples, I'd like to hear about them.



Sometimes, I publish a post-in-progress to give people a look at what I'm doing before I'm finished. I'm doing that today with this review of Hamilton. Each time I add to it, I will begin the addition with an italicized note that includes the time and date of the addition. My notes will consist of brief summary, my comments in italics, and links to items related to my comments.



I am publishing my notes on Act I: 1. Alexander Hamilton at 12:52 PM on December 28, 2018. I welcome your comments here, on FB, or on Twitter. I'll add to this post, as time and energy permit. 

Act I

1. Alexander Hamilton

Aaron Burr introduces us to Hamilton, asking how this particular man came to be "a hero and a scholar."John Laurens speaks next telling us that Hamilton worked so hard that by the time he was 14 years old, he was in charge of a trading charter.

Then, Thomas Jefferson tells us that while slaves were being slaughtered and "carted away across the waves," Hamilton kept his guard up, ready to "beg, steal, borrow or barter" to be a part of something.

Debbie's comments: Most people think of Andrew Jackson as the person most responsible for the Indian Removal Act--commonly called the Trail of Tears--but the idea originated with Jefferson. See his letter to William Henry Harrison, written on Feb 27, 1803.  As you will see when you read his letter, Jefferson was quite ready to do whatever it took to get Native lands. 

More of Hamilton's history is delivered by James Madison, Burr, and Hamilton himself. Eliza Hamilton tells us that Hamilton's mother died, and George Washington tells us that a voice inside told him that he had to fend for himself.

Debbie's comments: Most people think well of George Washington, but Native people do not. Did you know, for example, that a group of Seneca Chiefs wrote to Washington on Dec 1, 1790, to tell him that they called him "Town Destroyer" in their language and that when that name is heard, their women "look behind them and turn pale, and our children cling lose to the neck of their mothers."? 

Then Burr tells us that learning to fend for himself included "scammin' for every book he can get his hands on, plannin' for the future" and then, "see him now as he stands on the bow of a ship headed for a new land, In New York you can be a new man."

Debbie's comments: I'm noting that Miranda wrote "headed for a new land" instead of "headed for a new world" which is how people then and now--speak of what Native people had called home for thousands of years. So--Miranda chose "new land" instead of "new world." Why? Was he aware of the problems in that "new world" phrase? Or was it because "land" and "man" ("be a new man" is the last line) rhyme better? What do you think? 

That ship gets to New York and Burr says "Another immigrant, comin' up from the bottom."

Debbie's comments: That line is one reason so many people are enthralled by this musical. It frames America as a nation where immigrants can have the American dream. Every dollar of those dreams, though, came from lands that belonged to Native peoples that were in the way of the riches the immigrants wanted. 

Part 1 of Act 1 ends with people saying they fought with Hamilton, died for him, trusted him, loved him, and one of the final lines is Burr, saying "I'm the damn fool that shot him."


--Update, Friday, December 28, 1: PM--
On Twitter, Dr. Jeff Berglund told me about The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda. It is a two-act play by Ishmael Reed and will be at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City from Jan 4 through Jan 7, 2019. The website for the play says:

“The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda" is a two-act play by Ishmael Reed, about a playwright who is misled by a historian of white history into believing that Alexander Hamilton was an abolitionist. Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote a musical based upon this falsehood. Other historians would agree with Hamilton's grandson, Allan McLane Hamilton, author of The Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton, who writes, "It has been stated that Hamilton never owned a negro slave, but this is untrue. We find that in his books there are entries showing that he purchased them for himself and for others." The ghosts of those slaves who were trafficked by Hamilton attempt to educate Miranda, including Harriet Tubman who teaches him about “The Underground Railroad.” 

The main issue of the times during which "Hamilton" takes place was the expansion into Native American territory, yet no Native Americans appear in "Hamilton." Two Native American scholars educate Lin-Manuel Miranda about Washington and Hamilton's policy regarding the Native-American presence. Not only are Native-Americans omitted from “Hamilton", but so are white indentured servants, even though indentured servants worked on both the Washington plantation and the estate of his wealthy father-in-law, General Philip Schuyler. After his education, Lin-Manuel Miranda confronts Ron Chernow, the author of "Hamilton." It is Ishmael Reed’s hope that this play will form a rebuttal to the musical "Hamilton," which has misled thousands of students.

If I lived in NY, I'd be in the audience for sure. I hope to hear from people who do attend! And, thanks, Jeff, for the info! Back again at 1:33 PM to say that I started looking for interviews of Ishmael Reed about his play but haven't found anything yet. I did find a terrific article he wrote for Counter Punch on August 21, 2015: "Hamilton: the Musical:" Black Actors Dress Up like Slave Traders... and It's Not Halloween. Go read it!


--Update: Dec 29 2018, 10:46 AM--

I received two excellent comments about Hamilton. I am pasting them here (in the body of the post) so that people can see them (a lot of people choose not to read comments to posts). The first is from Ava Jarvis:

By all rights Hamilton the musical should make people uncomfortable, and the fact that it doesn't make more people uncomfortable is just very... 

Well, I'd call it "very assimilative." There's a very pervasive way that society takes what the mainstream considers perverse (like people of color, black music, etc) and assimilates it and changes it to make it palatable for the mass audience. Cultural phenomena like the white legend of Pocahontas are a very clear example of this process.

Hamilton is also a case of this, but very different. Whereas the white legend of Pocahontas is not intended to bring Native Americans into the mainstream as anything other than "one with nature" resources to be possessed and exploited by white socio-economic-political structures, Hamilton has the effect of incorporating non-Native POC into the history of white power structures so that we (I speak as a Vietnamese person, so I'm a non-Native POC) will feel affection for and subliminally support the history of our oppressors.

And it... grudgingly... works to do that. Even for me. I feel the thrill of hearing rap music on the Western musical stage, so traditionally white in terms of music; I see people of color on that stage in prominent starring roles and my heart sings; it is too, too easy to forget that this is a siren song to accept that US history was just when it was clearly very much not. 

So, unfortunate as it is, because of how history is, the effect of Hamilton feels very horrific to me. I would actually say that, reflecting on the effects the musical has on my mind, it's almost Lovecraftian in the way it urges me to forget every crime committed by the US government on multiple continents and in multiple countries, including my own family's ancestral home. To forget that I have friends and acquaintances and followers who've suffered greatly at the hands of the US government.

Hamilton urges us to forget the genocide, the slavery, the racism, the usurpation of foreign democracies, and nowadays draconian and cruel immigration "policies", and does it in such beautiful tones that it is so easy to remember the fantasy called "America" instead of the bloody true reality.

We can't forget that reality. If we do, we will not change it; we just end up accepting white power structures instead of resisting them. 

And I think Miranda was very, very purposeful in leaving out Native Americans. It would ruin the narrative effect he was going for. I really, really don't think he did this by mistake.   

The second one is from Dina Gilio-Whitaker and begins as a response to Ava's comment:

I certainly cannot say it more beautifully or concisely than Ava Jarvis above has stated it. I have not seen Hamilton, nor will I because I’m not really interested in paying to be entertained by false historical narratives. I will say, however, that I am deeply suspicious of anything by Lin Manuel Miranda. I didn’t know who he was until I reviewed Disney’s film “Moana” two years ago for Indian Country Media Network ( i’d post a link to it but the link is not working due to the technical issues involved in creating the new Indian Country Today site). 

I was part of a media junket that was treated to a full day at Disney’s Moana studio, in which they paid for several International journalists to come and be part of this tour (raising the questions of conflicts of interest immediately). I might add, that I received no travel benefits from the Disney company given that I live in Southern California. Anyway, I was very critical of the film in my final review of it, and I was later referred to by one of Disney’s staff to my editor as having “terrorized” them because of the tough questions I raised. My written critique was very balanced, but did note how Disney went so far out of its way to erase the colonial histories of Polynesia while it created a work of art that would make people fall in love with it without realizing its bigger problems, and also noted the kind of money the company would make of the images of other peoples cultures. 

The way it did this was by creating what they called the “oceanic brain trust“, a collection of Polynesian artists, elders, and other cultural people to lend a sense of authenticity to the film. All of those people were bound by non-disclosure agreements, which meant that they could not talk about what they were being compensated to be part of this “trust,” naturally raising suspicions for many in the Polynesian community who were also critical of the film. Too many people benefitted monetarily from the film to think more deeply about what they were contributing to. This is just one of the problems the film raised. 

Manuel wrote the music for Moana. He is an entertainer, not a historian. His job is to make people feel good, not to tell an accurate story. In Moana he does this at the expense of telling the truth, and to make people not think about the fact that Hawaii is basically an illegal, fake state. Although Miranda is Puerto Rican, he was raised in mainland US with a degree of economic privilege, and his father was a Democratic Party operative. He is steeped in party politics, and appears to be committed to multicultural liberalism, which is never about understanding history in terms of colonialism. It is thus no surprise that he would bring a sanitized pop culture rendition about Hamilton. Making people feel good pays a lot better than making them rethink their hideous history.