It's No Accident That HAMILTON Erases Native Americans
Melody Nicolette
There’s no frothy lead-up, I’m here to talk about how HAMILTON erases Native Americans, even more specifically the Algonquin peoples, on purpose, and why it matters. I am going to focus exclusively on the Native perspective, as I am not qualified to comment on Black American/ DACS views on the depiction of Hamilton and slavery. I will just link voices who are more qualified and way smarter than me at the bottom.
It honestly sucks that it took so long for people to take the criticisms of HAMILTON seriously, partly because it was so inaccessible until last week. Truly, every single Black and Indigenous voice of critique silenced back in 2015-2020 is owed an immediate and sincere apology.
First and foremost, I want to make it clear how much I love HAMILTON. ‘Satisfied’ makes me bitterly cry my God damn face off. The Busta Rhymes version of ‘My Shot’ (which takes such a wonderful jab at Carnegie Mellon and the Ivy League) makes my heart so happy. It’s because I love it and because I care that I raise my concerns. HAMILTON is the most important and powerful piece of art, literature, and media to come out in the last decade, 21st century, you name it. Its reach and how revolutionary (womp womp) it is cannot be understated.
I am not here to take away from what HAMILTON means for casting and how it’s changed Broadway forever, which, as I’ve written about before, I wholeheartedly endorse. I am not going to take away from the representation and the career jumpstarts the show has provided. I am not going to or trying to take away from what playing George Washington means to someone as a Black or Non-Black POC. I am not going to take away from people like my mom who considers herself the child of immigrants (even though her father was Indigenous), and what the show means to her. People crying about a Black George Washington, squirming over hip hop and cuss words? You better believe I am here for all of that. I respect that there are many, many facets and takes to be had, and appreciate all of them. However, what it has provided many does not take away from some of the damage that it’s done; these things can exist simultaneously.
I know this is shocking to many, but you can critique something and enjoy it at the same time. You can dislike huge aspects and elements of the media you consume, take great issue with it and enjoy it at the same time. I am not a contrarian malcontent (I promise!). I am asking you to think critically about something you enjoy, and, for some reason, so many (who are almost always not BIPOC) think this conflates to me “not knowing what [I’m] talking about” or that I “don’t understand art.” I have not “missed the point” of HAMILTON; it’s because I understand “the point” that the deliberate erasure of Native people is a point that needs to be dealt with. (Yes, I am going to be over-using “erasure” a lot in this article, and, yes, probably because of the Drawn Together episode.)
Native American people, First Nations people, Algonquin people, The People of the Dawnland were left out HAMILTON, and it was no accident. Lin-Manuel Miranda is a brilliant and deliberate writer, and this was a deliberate and conscious decision. He squeezed bits about the postal service, Coast Guard, and Martha Washington naming her Tomcat after Hamilton. We could have easily had a passing mention, but we’re excluded for a reason. We don’t fit the “we are all immigrants” narrative.
Frankly, neither does Hamilton himself, who was moving from one English colony to another, moving throughout an empire. He was born on the island of Nevis, which was under British rule and possession, making him a “native” born British citizen. We cannot assign the modern understanding of “immigration” to this colonial period, because it’s just not applicable. I know framing him as an immigrant is to push the narrative of Immigrant exceptionalism and ingenuity and to combat modern xenophobia and anti-immigration sentiments. I am also not even the first person to bring this up, but this idea of him as an immigrant has stuck--because of the musical. We can talk about how it’s “just art,” or an ‘artistic interpretation,” but art has real-life consequences.
In the same vein, while I do not consider my maternal grandfather an immigrant because he was an Indigenous person, the law does. He saw himself as being strictly American, which I also respect. There are many times where I am hesitant to bring up my Geordie grandmother, because people, for whatever reason, try to use it as a “gotcha” moment to downplay my Indigeneity and tout the “we are all immigrants” narrative. Even the proven to be patently false, and annoyingly racist, ‘Bering Strait Land Bridge” theory seeks to erase and control Native history and to somehow push the “we are all immigrants” narrative to justify genocide. There has also been a lot of criticism about the emphasis in HAMILTON on immigrant exceptionalism and how that plays into the dangerous “bootstraps” myth. (I am, by no means, anti-immigration or xenophobic, as much as I am concerned about how these narratives reinforce stereotypes and hurt immigrants.)
So, if Hamilton wasn’t technically an immigrant--
Why? Why do this?
There’s a lot of talk of“the narrative” in HAMILTON the show, and when talking about Alexander Hamilton the person. Native Americans do not fit “the narrative.” We are not convenient. Not even in HAMILTON, which is the champion of “representation” and “narrative,” do Native people have a place.
Ouch.
It hurts more than I thought it would, honestly. To be honest, we get used to it. Being Native means you spend your entire life being considered an inconvenience; among all sides of the political spectrum, there is an ever-present sense they just want you to disappear and go away so they can go on about their lives feeling good about themselves. Everyone loves the “vanishing Indian.” It’s like we're a stain or something. Y’all love all that Colors of the Wind sh*t, until a Native person points out that your National Parks exist because of murder and erasure. Imagine living in an entire world where everything that exists as you understand it is because of genocide. People crying about the Cheeto Stain in the office don’t think twice about the NDN killers on their damn money. It’s not about “playing the victim” (which sure is a lot of big talk for someone who couldn’t survive 10 minutes in the life of an actual Native person). It’s about navigating being born into a post-apocalyptic existence.
I try to find some balance between empathy and accountability. I think many people have just had to never think about it before, and in some ways, I get that. In others, I think it’s the refusal to recognize facts and move out of your comfort zone.
As a First Nations Abenaki person, the glaring omission in HAMILTON is, well, personal. I have a lot of feelings about it. N'dakwamadamen n'dep, to say the least. I am also well aware that most of the musical HAMILTON is based on the Ron Chernow biography (who is so deeply in love with Hamilton, he routinely glosses and whitewashes), which also downplays the contributions of Native people, but since I am also quite sure innumerable amounts of additional research were also factored in, I just don’t buy that it was an accident.
HAMILTON would have been the perfect venue to uplift Indigenous people. There is only a very brief and passing mention of the one figure whom this musical should have been made for: Black and Wompanoag Crispus Attucks. What about other Black and Indigenous figures, like Hokoleskwa? William (Billy) Lee? The Stockbridge Militia? The Montour family? Sagoyewatha? Konieschquanoheel? The vast majority of HAMILTON is set on Lenape ancestral land, are there land acknowledgments in the Playbill? You mean to tell me you can sneak in a line about Hamilton’s glasses on the dueling field and you can’t give the Treaty of Watertown and how the Wabanaki Confederacy was KEY in supporting the rebellion one? Really?!
American colonists would have never won the American Revolution without the help of the Algonquin Nations being allied with the French, especially OUR GUY Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette. Going back even further, the pilgrims would have never survived without help of the Wampanoag and Abenaki. The pilgrims were greeted by an Abenaki sachem, in English, when they landed at Plymouth rock. We never forgot the St. Francis “Raid” (slaughter) of the French and Indian war. It’s also important to remember that the American Revolution isn’t as popular as we’re taught that it was; there’s a reason that Britain had to hire Hessian mercenaries (this is even touched on in Poldark).
It’s important to remember that the relationships colonists held with Native nations during this time were like the nation to nation relationships countries have with each other today--and what America and Canada should legally continue to hold with Native nations today. There are only three mentions of “Indians” in the original US Constitution, but these establish this relationship (and is why Native nations today in both the US and Canada remain an extra-constitutional status). These diplomatic relationships, largely based on trade, were absolutely constant focal points of discussion.
Mentioning Native people, and their presence and contributions are not revisionist histories shoehorning, which makes their glaring omission all the more blatant. (Side Note: There is a line in the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson-- no friend of the Indians, who refers to the Nations who assisted King George as “merciless Indian savages.” This pays no mention, of course, the “merciless Indian savages” that aided the American colonists.)
Ultimately, continued erasure and omission of Native people have immediate and deadly consequences. However, HAMILTON is a blip in the giant ocean of a problem.
Native people know our own history--which includes the time before European contact. Our history did not start with colonization. We know who our ancestors are; America is still struggling to understand who its ancestors are. I think part of this inability to have these discussions is that the vast majority of Americans still have the Saturday morning cartoon understanding of their own country.
Part of that is our education system, part of it is this constant need to feel just and good about everything we do, and part of it is flat out blatant denial. I know that people want to blame Disney for everything, and act like it’s the only sanitized and feel-good entity in existence, when it exists as a piece of a much greater problem (spoiler, I also love Disney, but am very critical of it).
HAMILTON is the Saturday morning cartoon adaptation of history, making us feel good and sending us off humming some catchy tunes, so perhaps it IS fitting that it would be on Disney+ of all outlets. If things are really going to change in the Great Awakening we are facing, we’re going to have to have these ugly, messy, and painful conversations in an actually meaningful way. America wants to feel good about these people from American history and wants to feel the means justify the end results because it means their own comfort.
I am not asking you to “cancel” or denounce HAMILTON. I am not asking you to disavow what it means to you or burn your fan card. I am asking you to think critically about something you care about, which I also care about. I am trying to enrich your understanding of a cultural phenomenon, which has a responsibility to live up to the bill of goods it’s selling us. With great power comes great responsibility.
Wli nanawalmezi.