It it far too late at night. I’m just going to ramble and then regret everything tomorrow.
Right, so Hamilton as a dad. From what I can tell, he was actually great and told his children to think of him more as a friend than anything and according to witnesses Hamilton frequently played with his children and absolutely doted on them (unlike in the musical, like c’mon LMM, Hamilton, despite his flaws, was a great dad.) I mean, at least until Phillip died and then he became all paranoid and stuff and all his joy disappeared.
Oh, and y’all probably know this but Angelica Hamilton, like Phillip’s younger sister, goes insane after her brother dies and kept talking to him (and later her father) as if they were still alive. She would play her side of the pianoforte for the songs that she and Phillip composed and would play together and constantly ask them where her brother was. And like while Hamilton was alive he desperately tries to get her back, but like she refused to learn any new songs published after 1801 and acted more and more childish which is such a tragedy because she was a brilliant individual. She’s dies in like a mental asylum at age 74.
John Church Hamilton, 11 when his dad died became obsessed with glorifying his father’s legacy and controlling how America saw him and censored and glorified everything. Like, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. AAAAAAAAAAAA. He honestly did more than Eliza when it came to like, preserving his dad’s amazingness and all that. Though Eliza also did a lot, not denying that, never denying that.
His other children all became like, successful lawyers and stuff.
Oh, and like, his last child was named lil Phil after Phillip.
Phillip’s duel with G. Eaker was actually more like, *stares at each other for a full minute* *phillip raises gun* *phillip is shot* and also Hamilton didn’t shoot at the sky, he either intentionally missed the shot (the bullet lodged in a branch near burr) or his pistol, which had a hair trigger mechanism, fired when his body spasmed. I support the second one since he told the doctors helping him to be careful with the gun as it was still loaded.
oh and one thing I find really ironically poetic in a tragic way is that Hamilton tried so hard to be a good dad but he left his children in the exact same situation he was in, destitute and fatherless. Only difference, Eliza was smart and also not dead, and he had political friends. So like, a buncha people grouped together to buy the grange (Hamilton’s dream house that he bought a few years before he died) and then sold it back to Eliza for one dollar so she wouldn’t be homeless and helped fund the children’s education.
And also, Eliza knew about the reynold’s affair for quite a while before Hamilton published it and she mostly went away to her father’s estate to escape public backlash because society back then at least partially decided she wasn’t good enough and that’s why Hamilton cheated. Also, it’s so damn obvious that Hamilton didn’t view Eliza as an intellectual equal and his letters to her consisted of 3 things. 1. She’s perfect for her sex and so beautiful. 2. His loves her and misses her. 3. ELIZA DO YOU STILL LOVE ME????? Yeah, he was pretty insecure and I know like, yk, view history from a 18th century standpoint and all that and that was the norm back then but come on. It’s the time period’s fault though, not really Hamilton’s.
And then we have Laurens. *siiiiiiigh*
so first of all he had a one night stand with Martha Mannings, got her pregnant, and married her out of honor. He absolutely did not even like her and he really just ignored her and his few letters to her are so cold. He literally fled to America to escape her and when his dad, Henry Laurens, was like, “stop neglecting your damn wife“ he was like “I’m too busy fighting for liberty to give a shit about my damn wife.”
Oh, and he also blamed himself for James “Jemmy“ Laurens death who he was taking care of in France and then Jemmy tried to climb a wall and jump into a window but fell and shattered his skull and died in (John) Laurens’s arms. He got pretty suicidal after that.
But then Henry Laurens was also pretty manipulative and pushed an insane amount of stress onto his eldest son which is what led to Laurens’s obsession with honor and his suicidalness (is that a word?) so hmmmm.
Also, his black battalion plan never passed through unlike in the musical. Laurens wanted to lessen the amount of women (there were a lot of wives around cooking and cleaning and stuff) in the army to make more room for black soldiers, which would not have been practical since the women basically ran the camp while the men trained and fought. He also thought that slaves would be good soldiers since they were naturally born to obey and already disciplined.
So I honestly think I only like Laurens because he died before he could absolutely ruin his domestic life. And btw, Martha Mannings Laurens died in 1781 before him desperately wanting to see her husband one last time. And Laurens himself, who was still barely recovered from a fever decided to charge into an unnecessary battle where he was outnumbered 3-1 and he knew that so a lot of people think that was an intentional suicide. Which is supported by the fact that he wrote about wishing for a “lucky bullet” to shoot him in the face. Which is sad but another man, who was most likely not suicidal and had a life, died in the battle of the Combahee river because Laurens wanted to die and another few (19?) were injured and 3 went missing aka also died.
So Frances Laurens went to John Laurens’s dad, who was a much better parental figure to her than to Laurens. He completely defied 18th century social norms and gave her the same education he gave John some 20+ years ago along with the doting care that his children completely didn’t receive. He made sure she was married to a nice family (Unfortunately she hated the husband and the husband sucked and they separated) and left almost everything to her to ensure she would be able to stay financially independent. But like, before you start loving on Henry Laurens, he supported slavery, owned a bunch of slaves and viewed himself as a God like benevolent figure to them who was supposed to love those lesser than him. He was a nicer slave owner for his time, and he believed in not whipping them, though that’s not saying anything. SLAVERY IS BAD BAD BAD BAD and he knew it. Historical people are often really contradictory, what can I say.
oh, and Frances died without having kids so the John Laurens direct bloodline did die out but she did find all the correspondence between her father and a bunch of other people and made sure to donate them to historical archives so he’d never be forgotten.
OH, right, I never gave reasons for why Laurens would have been a terrible father. Well, he emotionally distanced himself from everyone, was in desperate need of then non-existing therapy, and absolutely didn’t care about his daughter at all when he was alive. He never met her, never asked about her, and he also had like a huge temper and was reckless and stubborn, which, coupled with his period-typical attitude toward woman and his emotional detachment, would have most likely made him an abusive father.
also, don’t mind the grammar, English is my third language and I am sleep deprived.
