How accurate is the musical, "Hamilton?"

by uhhohspaghettio

I've been listening to the musical, and I really like it, but I was wondering how accurate it is to Hamilton's actual life and experiences. Some things (such as his relationship with Aaron Burr) seem highly unlikely to me. I would love to read up on Hamilton's life, but simply do not have the time right now, and I just want to know what I should take from the musical as fact, and what is more fiction.

JumpyYarn

http://earlyamericanists.com/2015/08/07/hamilton_review-2/ http://earlyamericanists.com/2015/02/25/bastard-out-of-nevis-lin-manuel-mirandas-hamilton/

These two blog posts should answer your question. The junto is a blog by historians of early America so naturally they were very excited by the release of such a popular musical on their topic of expertise.

The musical gets most things accurate, Lin Manuel Miranda has said that the musical is based on Ron Chernow's biography of Hamilton, this is probably a good book to start with if you want a full biography of Hamilton. But there are a few minor inaccuracies. For example;

  • In response to the election of 1800 Madison sings "you won in a land slide," in reality this was a quite a close election
  • Furthermore Hamilton was not fired by Adams during his administration, as it is depicted in the show.
  • Washington's farewell adress does not come immediately after Jefferson's resignation. It happened years later.

But this should not detract from how well the show does other things. The capturing of the cabinet splits in rap battle form is magnificent and Daveed Diggs' Jefferson is excellent. I hope this answers your questions on the topic.