A new study by Jessie Serfilippi, a historical interpreter at the Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site in Albany, New York, details Alexander Hamilton’s “Hidden History as an Enslaver.”
Philip Schuyler was the father of Eliza Hamilton, Hamilton’s wife, and one of the largest slaveholders in New York State when the new nation was founded.
Version of Hamilton as an opponent of slavery presented in the Broadway musical, which was based on a biography of Hamilton by Ron Chernow.
Hamilton took different positions on slavery based on political expediency, had no moral opposition to the practice, in his work acted as a slave trader, and used enslaved Africans he and his wife owned or rented as household servants.
Hamilton, along with John Jay and Aaron Burr, was a founder of the New York Manumission Society in 1785. The society supported gradual manumission rather than immediate emancipation of enslaved Africans in New York State. Gradual manumission, which became law in 1799, meant that enslaved
— source newyorkalmanack.com | Jessie Serfilippi | Nov 10, 2020
