We Fact-Check "Hamilton"

While the Founding Fathers never rap battled their way through a constitutional dispute, Hamilton’s genre-bending retelling has reintroduced the legislator to a new generation of revolutionaries. But as the national tour turns Playhouse Square upside down July 17-Aug. 26, we wanted to know how close Hamilton and history aligned. Were Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr really lifelong rivals? Did Angelica Schuyler pine for the fair-haired Founding Father? We fact-checked a few plot points to add context to the chorus.

Angelica Schuyler
Hamilton
The oldest daughter of a wealthy landowner, Schuyler falls in love immediately with Hamilton, only to step aside for her equally enraptured sister, Eliza. “The gossip in New York City is insidious/Alexander is penniless/That doesn’t make me want him any less,” she sings in “Satisfied,” poignantly imagining the life they could have shared.

History
It’s unclear if Angelica Schuyler and Hamilton were more than very close friends. While the two intellectuals were flirtatious in letters, Angelica was already married to John Barker Church by the time she met Hamilton in 1780. “These letters would have been shared with entire families,” says Rodney Hessinger, a history professor at John Carroll University. “Our notion of exclusivity when it comes to marriage is more intense today than it would have been back then. You weren’t marrying a wife. You were marrying a family.”

Aaron Burr
Hamilton
Hamilton and the New Jersey politician nurture a rivalry that begins during the American Revolution and continues through the major moments of Hamilton’s life, from drafting the Federalist Papers to Hamilton’s perceived sabotage of Burr’s 1800 run for the vice presidency. 

History
Hamilton never asked Burr to collaborate on the Federalist Papers, and it was Hamilton’s rumored insult to Burr during his 1804 run for New York governor that led to their deadly duel. But the intensity of their rivalry was long-standing. “A letter published in 1804 hinted that Hamilton had been, in modern language, ‘talking smack.’ ” says Hessinger. “They guarded their reputations carefully, and that’s how you had to stand up for your name if you were impugned.”

Eliza and Hamilton's legacy
Hamilton
In the show’s finale “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story,” Hamilton’s wife provides an epilogue to the action. Eliza uses the time Hamilton never got to establish New York’s first private orphanage and secure her husband’s legacy.

History
Eliza lived 50 years after Hamilton’s death, creating the orphanage in honor of his troubled youth in the British Leeward Islands. In 1818, she founded the Hamilton Free School in Washington Heights — where more than 150 years later, Hamilton playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda grew up. “Miranda saw in Hamilton an American story of a scrapper, a rags to riches story,” says Malia McAndrew, a John Carroll University associate history professor. “With their talents combined, Miranda gave us this gift that allows other people to see themselves in the story of our nation.”