Last week brought us around to July 4 again, and for at least a day, many people’s thoughts turned to American history. Some people’s conceptions of the events of the American Revolution are wildly inaccurate. For example, somehow the details of Longfellow’s 1860 poem Paul Revere’s Ride have managed to supplant in a lot of people’s minds what really happened with that famous event. Maybe that’s the mark of a successful poem. Today, critics note that it’s a farrago of historical inaccuracies, but it’s what transformed Paul Revere into an American icon.
That’s sort of like how the musical Hamilton transformed the public image of the nation’s first Treasury Secretary. As a historian I’m often asked how accurate Hamilton is. Is it good history?
The musical is based on Ron Chernow’s excellent biography of Alexander Hamilton from 2004. Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton’s creator, read it while he was on vacation and he was immediately captivated. Once he was working on the musical he brought Chernow on as a historical consultant. It helped cure my initial skepticism to learn how determined Miranda said he was to get the history right.
And he largely has. Among many other things, it nicely portrays the centrality of George Washington. It’s both artistic and accurate to have Washington explain his decision to retire from the Presidency by singing “If I say goodbye, the nation learns to move on/ it outlives me when I’m gone.” It’s also accurate to have King George III doubt that someone would willingly step away from power. “I wasn’t aware that was something a person could do,” he sings in one of his three songs. The musical gets mostly right most of the details of Hamilton’s financial plans, and certainly his work on the Federalist Papers. Many of the songs directly quote his writings.
But there are factual errors, too. It implies that Washington’s Farewell Address and Jefferson’s retirement from Washington’s cabinet were much closer in time than they really were. It’s also wrong in saying that President John Adams fired Hamilton. Do these things matter? Well, on a test, yes. Here, not so much. It’s not the facts that make the musical work so well. It’s the truth behind the story.
It’s acceptable in a work of art for historical inaccuracies to be present, as long as it’s made clear that what you’re dealing with is a work of art and that it does not claim to be history as such. It’s incumbent upon us however to know the difference. Ideally, seeing something like Hamilton would be an invitation to learn more. Maybe even be like Miranda himself and read Chernow’s book.