Hamilton, history, and Ishmael Reed

Photo: BAMPFA

Ishmael Reed in the SF Chronicle (Ishmael Reed: ‘Hamilton’ is a bad jingoistic history, but nice eye candy).

I didn’t intend to inspire a minor news cycle in early January, when I staged a reading of my script “The Haunting of Lin Manual Miranda” in New York, and became the de facto voice of dissent for Miranda’s ultra-popular musical “Hamilton.”

My real purpose for the trip was to attend the screening of “Personal Problems,” a film that Steve Cannon, Walter Cotton and I produced in 1980. Then came the government shutdown, and the postponement of the showing. To make use of my time, I decided to round up some of the actors who had appeared in my 2017 play, “Life Among the Aryans,” to read from the “Miranda” script, which is built around the historical fact that Alexander Hamilton was not an abolitionist. He had slaves. He was not an innocent man against the great sin of slavery. Of course, the title and content drew some attention from the New York critical community.

There were reviews of the reading, many critical of my criticism, in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the New York Observer, Billboard, Current Affairs and the Paris Review. The reading inspired an intelligent debate, led by Joy Behar, on “The View,” while I was mocked on NPR’s nerdy “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me.”

Part of the negative response was derived from the surprise that I had not seen “Hamilton.”

I hadn’t, but I read Miranda’s book and even quoted from it in my script — the part in the show where Hamilton argues against treating blacks as property. Wrong. Hamilton considered blacks as private property and also accused the British of “stealing negroes from their owners.” 

“Hamilton” fans didn’t want to hear it and left their venom in the comments section under stories by the New York Times and Broadway World. One of them wrote that I was better off here, in the U.S., than in Africa. I had a great time in Africa. Not once was I spied upon while shopping in a store.

But, to satisfy my critics, I recently attended a performance of “Hamilton: The Revolution” at the Orpheum in San Francisco. It is a bad jingoistic history salvaged by the brilliant performance of a multicultural cast — there was more diversity on stage than in the audience.

Sometimes, what was happening onstage was overwhelmed by a noisy bass line, and so I had more of an access to the lyrics by reading them than listening to them. I thought that the dancing was smart, though I recognized some moves from “A Chorus Line.” This might be because choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler admires the work of Michael Bennett. Though the musical is billed as a hip-hop show, the hip-hop moves were kept at a minimum.

For eye candy, “Hamilton” is the tops. The set and costumes were dazzling and seemed historically accurate. Broadway knows how to put on a show. Miranda’s songwriting abilities are hyped, however. He’s no Cole Porter or Billy Strayhorn. OK, date me.

I winced for two hours as slave traffickers and owners like Hamilton, George Washington and members of Gen. Schuyler’s family were portrayed as abolitionists. They weren’t. They were cruel to their slaves. Archaeologists found the remains of their slaves and concluded that they were subjected to “back-breaking” work and suffered from malnutrition. 

Elizabeth, Hamilton’s wife, helped her mother manage the slaves. Runaways like a black woman named Diana, who appears in my play, were punished, possibly murdered.

And where were these Schuyler women, party girls, when their father sold a whole family for $200? And what was their, and Elizabeth’s fiance Hamilton’s, position when Gen. Schuyler and his friends decided that any slave found a mile from his Albany plantation be shot?

Though thousands of poor, white women battled the idea of slavery, wealthy white women like the Schuylers were complicit and, according to historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, even bought slaves for themselves.

But critics who haven’t seen my play and argue that I am critical of Miranda are wrong. I see Miranda as a victim of state historians. I call them historians of white history, like Jon Meacham who told a “Morning Joe” audience that slavery in America lasted 90 years and then corrected himself. To 100 years. A reminder: 2019 is the 400th anniversary of slaves arriving in Virginia. Meacham also has some kind words to say about Andrew Jackson, the Eichmann of Native American policy.

I can understand where Miranda found himself intellectually. Jesse James, the famed outlaw of 1800s America who was glorified in dozens of films, was one of my childhood heroes. Later I learned that he was a member of a Confederate guerrilla gang, Quantrill’s Raiders. His brother Frank was one of those who entered Lawrence, Kansas, and murdered 200 men. Their crime? Echoing Hamilton’s complaint against the British: stealing blacks.

Though “Hamilton” has received a rapturous reception in the United States, Miranda was picketed by students in Puerto Rico. One student accused him of glorifying an oppressor and suggested that he do a musical about Harriet Tubman.

A full production of my play, “The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda,” beginning May 23 at the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York, and directed by the award-winning Rome Neal, will not only present voices that are missing from “Hamilton: The Revolution” — Native Americans, slaves and white indentured servants — but also expose an upheaval that is happening in the American Historical Establishment as women, blacks, Native American and Latinx have their say.

Rob's comment:

I haven't seen "Hamilton," but I read Ron Chernow's biography, which of course doesn't make me an expert on the historical issues Reed raises. 

According to Chernow, Hamilton opposed slavery but lived his life in an America that was to a significant extent based on slavery. He did marry into a slave-holding family, but there's no real evidence that he personally owned slaves. (Chernow discusses the issue on pages 210-211 of Alexander Hamilton. See also this and this.)

The "stealing blacks" incident happened during the American Revolution, when Hamilton advocated enlisting slaves/blacks in the revolutionary army, while the British encouraged slaves to abandon the Americans and fight for them on the promise of freedom after the war.