![]() ![]() In late-18th century New York, according to historian Leslie Harris, the words “servant” and “slave” were often used interchangeably-especially in New York, where enslaved workers were likely to be members of the household staff. She adds, “Once you see it in his own handwriting, to me there’s really no question.”Īn 1893 photograph of Hamilton's estate, the Grange “There were free white servants who he hired but they were not included there.” “You can only ascribe monetary value to a person you are enslaving,” she says. It was a confirming moment for Serfilippi. That person wrote down the value of various items, including servants. The smoking gun was at the end of the cashbook, where an anonymous hand is settling Hamilton’s estate following his death. “He could only do that if he enslaved that child.” “He sent the child to work for another enslaver and then collected the money that child made,” Serfilippi says. One line item, dated June 28, 1798, shows that Hamilton received a $100 payment for the “term” of a “negro boy.” He had leased the boy to someone else and accepted cash for his use. Sefilippi initially looked at Schuyler’s children, including Eliza, who married Hamilton in 1780, and as she examined the founding father’s cashbook, the evidence jumped out at her in several places. According to the mansion, Schuyler enslaved as many as 30 laborers between his two properties in Albany and Saratoga, New York. Her paper came about as part of her research on the many African Americans enslaved by Schuyler. Serfilippi works as an interpreter at the Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site in Albany, New York, the home of Hamilton’s father-in-law Philip Schuyler, a Revolutionary War general and U.S. That’s the way many white people saw it in that time period.” “Hamilton may have seen enslavement of others as a step up for a white man. “We can’t get into his head and know what he was thinking,” she says. Serfilippi points out that by conducting these deals for others, Hamilton was in effect a slave trader-a fact overlooked by some historians. However, he often acted as legal arbiter for others in the transactions of people in bondage. Brilliant but argumentative, he was a member of the New York Manumission Society, which advocated for the emancipation of the enslaved. Hamilton’s connection to slavery is as complex as his personality. She’s found some actual evidence of enslavement on the part of Hamilton that is just more thoroughgoing and more clearly documented than anything we’ve had before.”Ī 1784 entry from Hamilton's cash books documenting the sale of a woman named Peggy “Her research confirms what we have suspected, and it takes the whole discussion to a new place. “Serfilippi’s research is super exciting,” he says. One who is not surprised by the revelation is author William Hogeland, who has written about Hamilton and is working on a book about his impact on American capitalism. Some had said he owned slaves but there was never any real proof.” “Part of me wondered if I was even wasting my time because I thought other historians would have found this already. “I didn’t expect to find what I did at all,” Serfilippi says. While antithetical to the popular image of the founding father, that reference has reinforced the view held by a growing cadre of historians that Hamilton did actively engage in enslaving people. In it, several line items indicate that Hamilton purchased enslaved labor for his own household. ![]() One of those documents includes Hamilton’s own cashbook, which is available online at the Library of Congress. In a recently published paper, “‘ As Odious and Immoral a Thing’: Alexander Hamilton’s Hidden History as an Enslaver,” the young researcher details her findings gleaned from primary source materials. Would I find instances of him enslaving people? I did.” “I went over that thing so many times, I just had to be sure,” recalls Serfilippi, adding, “I went in to this with the intention of learning about Hamilton’s connection to slavery. As she worked at her computer, she had to keep checking to make sure what she was seeing was real: irrefutable evidence that Alexander Hamilton-the founding father depicted by many historians and even on Broadway as an abolitionist-enslaved other humans. For Jessie Serfilippi, it was an eye-opening moment. ![]()
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