The Real Alexander Hamilton

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 3 July 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence impoverished in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?

This is the famous question posed by Lin Manuel Miranda in his smash-hit Broadway show Hamilton that's swept the globe. It's a celebration and looks into the life of the once lesser-known founding fathers, instrumental in the creation of the United States in the late 18th Century. To mark American Independence Day celebrations, Senior Lecturer of American Studies at the University of Manchester Dr Natalie Zacek joins Dan to break down Alexander Hamilton's life, role in the American Revolutionary War and whether he really was as important as Miranda's play makes him out to be.

Produced by Mariana Des Forges & Hannah Ward

Mixed and Mastered by Dougal Patmore

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi buddy, welcome to Dan Snow's history. It's the question we've all been asking the last couple of years,
0:05.0	and there's how does a bastard, orphan son of a whore and a Scotsman dropped in the middle of a thugot
0:09.6	and spot in the Caribbean by providence impoverished in squalor grow up to be a hero and a scholar?
0:15.9	A question put by Lin Manuel Miranda in Thamau's of one of his characters in the musical Hamilton.
0:23.3	Well, it's a question that has fascinated me for a long time because as a geeky student of late 18th century US history,
0:32.0	I was always a big fan of Hamilton, and then someone came along and wrote a musical about him,
0:36.3	seemingly for my benefit. I've been to see that musical so many times it's embarrassing to enumerate them
0:41.6	on this podcast, but today we're going to put a bit of historical flesh, factual flesh on the artistic bones.
0:49.1	With a very brilliant Dr Natalie Zadshek, she's a senior lecturer at Manchester University.
0:54.8	She's an expert not just in the history of the American colonies, but in the colonies of the Caribbean as well,
1:00.6	which is where Hamilton was born. So she's the ideal person to talk to us today about Hamilton.
1:06.5	Here is Natalie Zadshek, enjoy.
1:15.0	Natalie, thank you very much for coming on the podcast.
1:17.6	Thanks for having me, Dan. So Alexander Hamilton not born in the, well, obviously not born in the US,
1:25.1	so because the US didn't exist clearly in the mid 18th century. But where was he from? What's his
1:30.4	background? He was born on the island of Nevis, which was an English colony in the Caribbean as it was
1:37.9	until the mid 20th century. When he had a difficult upbringing, not only did his family not have a lot of
1:45.6	money, but his parents were not married to one another. So by the standards of the time, he was a
1:52.4	quote bastard. And his mother died when he was quite young and his father appears to have left
2:01.2	the island. So he was essentially orphaned by the time that he was an adolescent.
2:06.3	Was he a religious genius from an early age, so very seriously reading and writing things that's
2:12.3	that impression given? He certainly was very intelligent and very hardworking and
	...

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