Head tax lists were generally compiled on a yearly basis for every plantation or slave owning property. A 1772 letter in Hamilton’s handwriting sought the acquisition of “two or three poor boys” for plantation work and asked they be “bound in the most reasonable manner you can.”, READ MORE: 5 Things You May Not Know About Alexander Hamilton. A 1796 cash book entry recorded Hamilton’s payment of $250 to his father-in-law for “2 Negro servants purchased by him for me.” However, a ledger entry the following year noted the deduction of $225 from the account of Angelica’s husband, John Barker Church, for the purchase of a “negro woman & child,” suggesting the transaction could have been on their behalf. While the historical record remains unclear on this point, it reflects the gap between Hamilton’s words and deeds. Hamilton watched hundreds upon hundreds of captives come ashore after making the Middle Passage and would have helped inspect and price those who were to be auctioned. Throughout his life, like so many leaders of the time, he allowed or used slavery to advance his fortunes—both indirectly and through compromises he chose to make.
She bequeathed one of the boys, Ajax, to Alexander, but after her death in 1768, a court denied the inheritance because of Hamilton’s illegitimate birth and granted ownership of Ajax to his half-brother instead. Head tax lists were generally compiled on a yearly basis for every plantation or slave owning property.
In 1780, he married into the wealthy, slaveholding Schuyler family. In 1803 the population of the island was 30,000 with 26,500 being slaves engaged in planting and processing sugar cane. All Rights Reserved. In his ambition to rise above his humble beginnings, Hamilton appeared to have frequently swallowed his anti-slavery sentiments as he pushed for acceptance into America’s colonial elite—most of whom enslaved people. These lists were used for tax purposes and listed the name of each person, both slave and free, who lived on the estate. Hamilton Opposed Slavery, But Made Compromises Using wealth built on the backs of enslaved laborers, a group of St. Croix businessmen, impressed with … Some of these records have been indexed and are searchable by name. Historians differ, however, on whether Hamilton's financial records refer to enslaved household workers owned by his in-laws—or by the Hamiltons themselves. This database contains censuses for the island of St. Croix in the Danish West Indies (today the U.S. Virgin Islands). Although there is no definitive proof, Hamilton’s grandson, Allan McLane Hamilton, claimed that those transactions had been for his grandfather himself. Saint Croix is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincorporated territory of the United States. In the course of handling his in-law’s finances, the future U.S. treasury secretary was involved in the purchase and sale of enslaved servants for the Schuylers. “We find that in his books there are entries showing that he purchased them for himself and for others.”. However, since the movement of slaves was restricted, you can usually find individuals living on the same estates or plantations for several years. Notably, while serving as George Washington’s trusted aide de camp during the Revolution, Hamilton was loath to broach the topic with the general, who enslaved more than 100 people at his Mount Vernon plantation. Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. This database contains images of plantation and town head tax lists from the island of St. Croix in the Danish West Indies (today the U.S. Virgin Islands) from 1772-1821. In 1774, he published his first major political essay, “A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress,” which drew direct comparisons between enslaved people and colonists oppressed by the British. March 31st 2017 is the centenary of Transfer Day, when the Danish West Indies was handed over to the U.S. Even though Hamilton’s family had few riches, his mother at one time owned five enslaved people, whom she hired out to supplement her income, as well as four boys who served as her house servants. READ MORE: The Scandal That Ruined Alexander Hamilton's Chances of Becoming President. As a New York delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Hamilton saw the need for compromise in order to establish a new, strong federal government, so he supported the so-called "three-fifths" clause, which counted each enslaved worker as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of determining state population. 5 Things You May Not Know About Alexander Hamilton, The Scandal That Ruined Alexander Hamilton's Chances of Becoming President, How Alexander Hamilton's Widow, Eliza, Carried on His Legacy. Two years earlier, Hamilton had been among the founders of the New York Manumission Society, which sought the gradual emancipation of enslaved people in the state. This database contains images of plantation and town head tax lists from the island of St. Croix in the Danish West Indies (today the U.S. Virgin Islands) from 1772-1821. “I have not the least doubt, that the negroes will make very excellent soldiers, with proper management,” Hamilton continued, adding that “their natural faculties are probably as good as ours.” His lobbying, however, failed to win support and Laurens' plan was abandoned. And in 1779, he championed a plan proposed by his friend John Laurens to arm and enlist enslaved people in the Continental Army—and reward them with their freedom in return. Hamilton helped devise a specific timetable for the society’s members to free their own enslaved workers—an initiative that went nowhere. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! The censuses are for the years 1835, 1841, 1846, 1850, 1855, 1857, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890, 1901, and 1911. Amid an island of such natural beauty, there was no avoidance of slavery’s grotesque cruelty. FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Whatever distaste of slavery Hamilton may have had, he proved capable of overlooking it for love and country. The situation was critical. READ MORE: How Alexander Hamilton's Widow, Eliza, Carried on His Legacy. To browse this image set, select from the options below. © 2020 A&E Television Networks, LLC. 70 years after the revolutionists in the thirteen colonies rose up from tyranny in 1776 and 17 years before chattel slavery was abolished in the United States, the enslaved on St Croix banded together and … But any moral objections he held were tempered by his social and political ambitions. “The dictates of humanity and true policy equally interest me in favor of this unfortunate class of men,” Hamilton wrote in an appeal on behalf of Laurens to the Continental Congress. After attending New Jersey’s Elizabethtown Academy, Hamilton matriculated at New York City’s King’s College, where 16 slave merchants served as trustees, and students such as George Washington’s stepson Jacky brought enslaved servants with them to school. “Without this indulgence, no union could have possibly been formed,” Hamilton told the New York Ratifying Convention. Hamilton spent his teenage years working as a clerk with the St. Croix trading firm Beekman and Cruger, which imported everything needed for a plantation economy—including enslaved people from West Africa. Alexander Hamilton abhorred slavery and at a few points in his life worked to help limit it. Using wealth built on the backs of enslaved laborers, a group of St. Croix businessmen, impressed with Hamilton’s potential, paid for him to be educated in the American colonies. Big crowds of enslaved laborers from the town and the plantations took complete control of the small town of Frederiksted. The price of sugar in the world market was stable for the first decades of the 19th century and St. Croix’s plantation owners were doing well. One of the leading men among the rebels was the enslaved laborer John Gottlieb, called General Buddhoe.
Shortly before Hamilton’s father abandoned his family, he moved them in 1765 to St. Croix, where 22,000 of the island’s 24,000 residents were held in captivity to cultivate the “white gold” produced on sugar plantations. In 1917 the colony was sold to the U.S. for $25 million in gold coin. From the moment he was born out of wedlock near a Caribbean waterfront frequented by ships transporting captives from Africa, Hamilton’s life was entwined with slavery. Here on St Croix, there’s a very similar and equally heroic story. For slaves, usually only their first name was listed. The Founding Father opposed slavery, but he bought and sold enslaved people for his in-laws—and possibly even his own household. In July 1848, a slave rebellion started on St. Croix. These lists are similar to censuses and can essentially serve the same purpose in your research. U.S. Virgin Islands Census, 1835-1911 (Danish Period). From 1672 to 1917 Denmark had a colony in the Caribbean called the Danish West Indies, which consisted of the islands St. Thomas, St. Jan and St. Croix. Nonetheless, Hamilton held more progressive views than most of the Founding Fathers in regard to the equality of races. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. They allow you to pinpoint an individual in a particular place and time, as well as track them over a span of years. However, in his 1774 political treatise A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress, Hamilton wrote that “all men have one common origin: they participate in one common nature, and consequently have one common right.” While hardly approaching the extreme paradox of Thomas Jefferson’s espousal of independence while enslaving hundreds of people, Hamilton’s relationship to slavery came with its own complex contradictions. (Washington himself had opposed the idea until the British dangled just such a lure.) General Philip Schuyler—father of Hamilton’s wife, Elizabeth—enslaved as many as 27 people who toiled in his Albany, New York, mansion and on a nearby farm in Saratoga. Growing up on the island of Nevis, young Alexander walked past slave auction blocks and the crowds who gathered in the public square to witness enslaved people being whipped. “It has been stated that Hamilton never owned a negro slave, but this is untrue,” Hamilton’s grandson wrote in a biography of his grandfather, originally published in 1910. In spite of the society’s stated goals, more than half of its members owned humans. Hamilton served as the secretary of the organization, which established the New York African Free School and aided in the passage of a 1799 state law that freed the children of enslaved people. In 1784, he attempted to help his sister-in-law Angelica reacquire one of her formerly enslaved people. For such a voluminous writer, Hamilton left sparse notes about the issue of slavery.
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