Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and Thomas Jefferson, three men diametrically opposed to each other yet without whom the very existence of the United States would’ve been impossible. Yet Eliza Hamilton, Mary Emmons, and Sally Hemmings, three women who shaped and formed the history of the birth of America, had their existence erased. All official documents of Emmons’ were burned. Hemmings children were forced to deny their lineage in order to live a life. Hamilton wrote and aided her husband writing many documents, including the Federalist Papers and Washington’s Farewell Address, never to be authored or credited. These resilient women of their own revolution, all of whom history worked endlessly to eradicate and humiliate, never once let others define them, not knowing that they too were paving the way for modern-day America. Thus, the focus on this paper is on the lives and contribution to the United Sates of America of Elizabeth Hamilton, Mary Emmons Burr, and Sally Hemmings.
A woman timidly sits quietly between her opinionated, loud older sister and her persnickety little sister (Wikipedia). The same woman remains silent to the public when her husband exposes his affair with another woman (PBS). The same woman quietly has her eldest daughter institutionalized when she tries to murder the woman’s baby (Wikipedia). Textbooks, documentaries, and Broadway paint this woman as oblivious, bashful, and even helpless (Watkins). This woman is Eliza Hamilton and she is anything but helpless.
Raised in Albany, New York at the famous Schuyler Estate, Eliza was raised with her other fourteen siblings, which only seven of made it to adulthood, and was daughter of Revolutionary War hero Philip Schuyler and socialite Catherine Van Rensselar (Wikipedia). Due to her father being in the military, Eliza was constantly consumed with hosting or helping the U.S Army, first meeting young Alexander Hamilton hosting a house party. However, they didn’t fall in love with each other until a winters ball in 1780, and got married December 14, 1780 (PBS).
Life with a parentless immigrant who talked first and thought later was a far cry from Eliza proper upbringing, and she adored every second of it. “My good, my tender, my fond, my excellent Betsy, Adieu. You know not how much it must ever cost me to pronounce this word. God bless and preserve you.” Alexander wrote in his letter to Eliza on July 10, 1781 (National Archives). The newlywed couple were ripped apart by Alexander’s dutiful loyalty to Washington and returned to his duty on the battlefront (Hamilton, A.). Moving back to her parent’s house in early 1982, Eliza had her first child of eight. Even after the Revolutionary War, the Hamilton’s were more financially poor than they had every been. Living in upper Manhattan in 1799, Eliza did everything possible to provide an excellent education as well as a childhood for her many children (Gilder). Additionally, Eliza significantly aided her husband in his many political ambitions, helping him publish The Federalist papers, copy out parts of the Bank of the United States, and counseled and critiqued him as he drafted Washington’s Farewell Address (Mae). Despite being born into immense luxury and privilege in America, there no existing documents that obviously state that Eliza nor Alexander held possession of slaves. In fact, Eliza later in her life often spoke out against slavery among many other crimes against humanity (Thinnes). Alexander, traveling often for his job as the First Treasurer of the United States, despite loving and being in a wonderful relationship with Eliza at the time, had an affair with Maria Reynolds from the summer of 1791-June 1792 (Wikipedia). Alexander Hamilton not only becoming “The first major American politician publicly involved in a sex scandal” as written on his biography page on Wikipedia, but published the 100 page brochure infamously known as the Reynolds Pamphlet in 1797 which he shared every cowering detail of the affair in order to save his career, but in the process ruining himself. Eliza eventually forgave her husband, and never gave a public address on her own perspective, concealing her thoughts on the humiliation with her head held high.
Soon after, Eliza’s oldest child, Philip, died after being fatally shot in a duel on November 24, 1801. Then on July 11, 1804 Alexander was fatally wounded in a duel with Aaron Burr and died the next day (Wikipedia). Eliza racked with grief already, received the news that her father passed way with her mother passing away the year before. Her oldest daughter suffered a mental breakdown, trying to suffocate Eliza’s two-year-old with a pillow case. Eliza was forced to institutionalize her with the threat of others safety in jeopardy. Eliza began to file and store Alexander’s many documents to eventually give to a safe collection by Congress to keep safe, many of the documents still in pristine condition today (Wikipedia). In the midst of her life’s chaos, Eliza founded New York City’s first private orphanage which housed and educated at least 756 when she worked as directress until her death in 1854 at age 97. Although her husband’s story ended nearly fifty years earlier, Eliza Hamilton’s had just begun.
From being an Indian mulatto sold into slavery by her distant family to becoming the secret wife of one of the most powerful politicians in the history of America, the name Mary Emmons has never seen the inside of a history textbook. Born in 1760 in Calcutta, India with the name Eugénie Beauuharnais, she was sold into slavery in Saint-Domingue at a cane sugar plantation (Wikipedia). Cane sugar plantations in the Caribbean are reputable in history due to their horrific conditions and cruel treatments of slaves, Eugénie most certainly being a victim. She was bought by British officer Jacques Marcus Prevost for his wife, Theodosia Prevost, back in the colonies. Eugénie immediately changed her name to Mary Emmons once she left the West Indies.
Only being with Theodosia Prevost for a short amount of time before her husband died, Mary remined her dutiful servant when Theodosia married Aaron Burr, the American Founding Father. Burr soon turned his interests to teenage Mary, and with no way for her to refuse her master, Mary become his mistress (Wikipedia). He placed her at his house in Philadelphia, while Theodosia remained in New York, slowly losing the battle of her health as well as her marriage. Mary gave birth to two of Burr’s children, Louise Charlotte Burr in 1788, and John Pierre Burr in 1792. Theodosia passed away in 1793, leaving Burr to quickly marry Mary on a trip to Haiti (Burr, S).
Whatever freedom Mary possessed as a slave on a desolate island, was surely more than she ever had in her marriage with Aaron Burr in one of the most rapidly growing cities in the colonies. Forced to keep her head low to the public, she has no record of friends or invitations to events. Aaron never spoke a word of their hasty reunion to public, not taking a chance with his delicate career (Scott). Becoming the Vice President of the United States in 1801, Burr drifted away from Mary, eventually leaving her land to live with her two children. Resilient and resourceful, Mary raised her children with strong morals and beliefs. Her daughter married a free black man in Pennsylvania and mothered the author, Frank J. Webb, writing the second book to ever be published by a black man, The Garies and Their Friends. Mary’s son, John Pierre, was an active abolitionist, aiding the creation of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society and had his property become a famous stop on the Underground Railroad (Wikipedia). Both her beloved children becoming vivid parts of history, we can only believe that Mary herself, was more extraordinary than we’ll ever know due to a crime against history. When Aaron Burr died in 1836, four years after Mary’s own, he gave a trusted friend all his documents in order to write an honest and well-grounded biography. There is a believable rumor that this particular friend bragged that he took the liberty of burning any document that would’ve brought ‘shame” to Burr’s name. While not able to factually state, there is a high probability that all official certificates, letters of correspondence, and any other evidence relating Burr to Mary, were purposefully destroyed.
Sally Hemmings was trapped by the crime of slavery, and had an open window to a life of freedom, yet she traded her future and dreams for the promise of freedom for her unborn children. Not much is known about the childhood of Thomas Jefferson’s mistress, Sally Hemmings, but she was the half-sister of Martha Jefferson, both having the same father, John Wales. It is speculated that Sally was born in 1773, like many slaves, she does not have an exact birthday date (Monticello). She came to Jefferson’s property, Monticello, when she was a young child. Despite her youth, she became Jefferson’s younger daughter’s, Maria’s, maid. At age fourteen, Sally was sent with Maria to France as to accompany and serve her needs. Although it took nearly ten weeks, Sally and Maria successfully made the trip from Virginia to the most coveted place in Europe, the city of Paris.
After two years learning the beautiful city and its language, Jefferson decided it was time for himself and Sally to depart. However, Sally refused. In 1789 in France, African Americans were free people by law, making Sally a free person under France. Around the same time Sally and widowed Jefferson are believed to begin their lifelong affair, leaving Sally pregnant at 16 (Wikipedia). Jefferson could have had Sally put in jail, killed, or even take away her baby as soon as it was born to live on his plantation without its mother. He instead countered, promising Sally better treatment and gentler living conditions back at Monticello. But Sally had the deal in her hand, and she knew it. Only after Jefferson promised better living conditions for her, only light housework, and for all her future children and descendants to be freed at twenty one, did Sally finally agree to go back to the United States (Monticello).
Sally had six children with Jefferson, four of which survived to adulthood. None of her children were shown any sort of fatherly affection by Jefferson, only knowing their true relationship through their mother. As his promise, Jefferson freed all of Sally’s children at the age of twenty one, her two eldest son and daughter disappearing into high-class white society having light coloring, but forced to deny their lineage with both Jefferson and Sally, as the secret daughter and son of a President and a slave in 1822 would only mean societal as well as physical death. To the modern day, the lives of Harriet and Beverley Hemmings are untraceable after they left Monticello. Sally’s other two sons were freed inn 1826 in Jefferson’s will at his passing. Sally herself was never legally freed, but was “given her time” by Martha Jefferson, living with her sons Madison and Eston until her death in 1835. Both sons moved to own and operate farms, as well as publicly making it known that they were the sons of Jefferson until their deaths. Sally Hemmings gave up her dreams of freedom to live in slavery to Jefferson in hope that he would save her children.
In the modern-day of the United States, people often long for the days of our Founding Fathers, reminiscing the sweet hope that made our country great. I can imagine Sally yearning for the man who kept her in chains for her entire life, using the souls of innocent children to force her to give him her innocence. And Eliza who devoted the herself to serving her husband was paid back with the public advertisement of her failure of a marriage and left with tremendous heartbreak, surely, she would like to go back in time. Don’t forget the survivor of slavery who was sent halfway around the world that was trapped with her two children in a secret marriage with the “most devout Christian” Vice President there was (Study). The lives of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, Mary Emmons Burr, and Sally Hemmings are priceless pieces of history, their influence on the culture and the country undeniable. The United States needed the Founding Fathers, but it wouldn’t have lasted two weeks without these incredible and uncredited Founding Mothers.
Works Cited
Hamilton, Alexander. “From Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, [10 July 1781],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%20Author%3A%22Hamilton%2C%20Alexander%22%20Recipient%3A%22Hamilton%2C%20Elizabeth%22&s=1111311111&r=1. [Original source: The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, vol. 2, 1779–1781, ed. Harold C. Syrett. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 647–648.]
Gilder Lehrman institute of American History. “The Private Life of Alexander Hamilton”. Google: Arts and Culture. https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-private-life-of-alexander-hamilton-the-gilder-lehrman-institute-of-american-history/OgXxJ50cKOjtKQ?hl=en. Accessed August 24, 2024.
Mae, Tara. “Eliza Hamilton: She Told Their Stories”. Three Village Historical Society. Published July 26, 2026. https://www.tvhs.org/post/eliza-hamilton-she-told-their-stories#:~:text=While%20he%20was%20composing%20The,Alexander%20drafted%20Washington's%20Farewell%20Address. Accessed August 26, 2024.
Monticello. “The Life of Sally Hemmings”. 2024. https://www.monticello.org/sallyhemings/. Accessed August 19, 2024.
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Scott, Susan Holloway. “Recovering a Heroine that History Erased”. Published April 8, 2020. https://susanhollowayscott.com/blog/2019/4/4/recovering-a-heroine-that-history-erased. Accessed August 17, 2024.
Smithsonian Magazine. “Why Elizabeth Hamilton Is Deserving of a Musical of Her Own”. Published 2016. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-elizabeth-hamilton-deserving-musical-her-own-180958214/. Accessed August 26, 2024.
Thinnes, Cynthia. “Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton and Slavery”. Quiet Heroines: Celebrating the Power of the Feminine. https://quietheroines.com/elizabeth-schuyler-hamilton-who-lives-who-dies-who-tells-your-story/elizabeth-schuyler-hamilton-and-slavery/. Accessed August 26, 2024.
Watkin, Amy. “Eliza Hamilton Was Not Helpless”. McSweeny’s Internet Tendency. Published September 28, 2016. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/eliza-hamilton-was-not-helpless. Accessed August 23, 2024.
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