Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757 – July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first Secretary of Treasury from 1789 to 1795 during George Washington's presidency.
Born out of wedlock in Charlestown, Nevis, Hamilton was orphaned as a child and taken in by a prosperous merchant. He pursued his education in New York City where, despite his young age, he was a prolific and widely read pamphleteer advocating for the American revolutionary cause, though an anonymous one. He resigned to practice law and founded the Bank of New York. In 1786, Hamilton led the Annapolis Convention to replace the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution of the United States, which he helped ratify by writing 51 of the 85 installments of The Federalist Papers.
He is most famous for being the face on the back of the $10 note, and the protagonist of the smash Broadway musical “Hamilton.”
However, according to some historians he could also be one of the most influential gay men in American history since he had a close relationship with statesman John Laurens, while both were soldiers during the revolutionary war.
Several letters seem to prove this:
In a letter to Laurens, dated April 1779, he wrote: “Cold in my professions, warm in my friendships, I wish, my Dear Laurens, it might be in my power, by action rather than words to convince you that I love you … You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent.” And in another letter dated September 1779 – after he had become engaged to wife Elizabeth Schuyler – he wrote: “Like a jealous lover, when I thought you slighted my caresses, my affection was alarmed and my vanity piqued.
“I had almost resolved to lavish no more of them upon you and to reject you as an inconstant and an ungrateful.
“I give up my liberty to Miss Schuyler. She is a good-hearted girl who I am sure will never play the termagant; though not a genius she has good sense enough to be agreeable, and though not a beauty, she has fine black eyes.”
And finally in a letter dated 1780, he seems to imply that the marriage was a fabrication, writing: “In spite of Schuyler’s black eyes, I have still a part for the public and another for you; so your impatience to have me married is misplaced; a strange cure by the way, as if after matrimony I was to be less devoted that I am now.
“Adieu, be happy, and let friendship between us be more than a name.”
At the time of the letters, sodomy was still a crime in all the colonies.
Laurens was killed in battle in 1782, while Hamilton was shot dead by Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel in 1804.
QUESTION: How is Ron DeSantis going to change this narrative?
Pier Angelo was born in Italy, moved to England at the age of 17 and learned English at the Nelson School of English. He attended college and graduate school in Manhattan. In 2009 he founded SFGN with Norm Kent. Now he’s retired with his husband Tom and his Affenpinscher Cabbage. He still enjoys writing his column Off The Wall for OutSFL.
