#rachel faucette

[rain-on-wax-feathers]

rachel faucette and her two sons

[pub-lius]

RACHEL HAMILTON FACTS

Help I have a wax museum project for school and I’m doing her I cannot find anything about her

OKOKOK This ask is the reason I opened my inbox and discovered all my unanswered asks FSHSJKHFSKH mb. My source for this is Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton (because when isn't it) because exactly as you said, there is very little information about Rachel, and Ron walked so the rest of us could run. Here we go

Rachel was one of seven children

Five of Rachel's siblings died in childhood, leaving only our girl and her sister Ann. Ann went on to marry James Lytton after she fled Nevis (where they lived) due to an agricultural plague. Ann Lytton could not take in young Hamilton when he needed it, but she was the only blood relative on Rachel's side that he maintained contact with, and helped her out financially later on.

She was a child of divorce (basically)

Her parents had a very rocky relationship, and this possibly impacted her later relationships with men. Eventually, her parents separated, and she lived with her mother. She seems to have been very close with her mother, as they moved often together, or at least stayed close to one another.

She was previously married, and divorced

Before she met James Hamilton, she was married to man named Johann Lavien. Lavien was really horrible to her and financially and mentally abused her. When she ran away, Lavien sued for divorce, but long story short, Rachel didn't show up for court, and ended up being imprisoned for several years for adultery. The way divorce worked at the time was that a man could win a divorce case with just one accusation of adultery (especially if the woman didn't show up for court) but a woman needed several different, confirmed charges against the man to win. So, it would have been very hard for her to have won in the first place. Also, because of her no-show, she was forbidden from ever remarrying, hence why Hamilton was a bastard.

It is not incorrect to call her Rachel Hamilton and/or Rachel Faucette

While it is probably more respectful to use her maiden name, Faucette, there was a time where she lived as Rachel Hamilton, even though her marriage to James could not have been legally valid. While they lived in Nevis, James and Rachel lived with their two children as a married couple. However, it was when they moved to St. Croix that people recognized her as the former Mrs. Lavien, and tormented her and the boys with their illegitimacy.

She was a very independent woman

If Hamilton inherited anything from his mother, it was his quick thinking and independent mind. Rachel had her own income, and was able to provide for her two sons and tutor them after James left them. She was described by one of Hamilton's sons as "a woman of superior intellect, elevated sentiment, and unusual grace of person and manner. For her he was indebted for his genius." These are all words used to describe Hamilton later in life.

She supported other local women

In teaching her son in his earliest education, she chose a local Jewish woman to do so. Hamilton recalled being taught by her when he was small enough to sit on the table to read next to her. Towards her death, she was tended to by a woman named Ann McDonnell. In a society that was incredibly hostile to women, this was very important.

She died of an unknown illness next to her son, Alexander

She caught a fever in 1768, and was tended to by the aforementioned Ms. McDonnell and a man named Dr. Herring. She was given valerian, and bloodletting was used on Alexander (medicine of the 18th century is a whole other can of worms). Unfortunately, she did not recover, and died at nine o'clock on February 19, 1768.

Those are some of the most important and interesting facts, I believe, about Rachel Faucette. She is really one of my favorite historical figures, and I could talk about her and Maria Reynolds all day. I just love women who overcome the disadvantages they were given in life, I respect them so much. Hope this helps with your project!!!

[yr-obedt-cicero]

Do you think that Hamilton’s children were aware of his illegitimacy? I highly doubt Hamilton talked about his childhood much, but do you think at least one or two of the children suspected something while he was alive? I know J.C. Hamilton skimmed over it in the biography he wrote of his father, so he at least was somewhat aware of it in adulthood.

It's not clear, but my best assumption is that he likely told them if they were curious (Which I'm sure they were, after all they were quite close with their maternal relatives and knew no one from their dad's side) the same story he told William Jackson, which was;

A Dane a fortune-hunter of the name of Lavine came to Nevis bedizzened with gold, and paid his addresses to my mother then a handsome young woman having a snug fortune. In compliance with the wishes of her mother who was captivated by the glitter of the [blank] but against her own inclination she married Lavine. The marriage was unhappy and ended in a separation by divorce. My mother afterwards went to St Kitts, became acquainted with my father and a marriage between them ensued, followed by many years cohabitation and several children. But unluckily it turned out that the divorce was not absolute but qualified, and thence the second marriage was not lawful. Hence when my mother died the small property which she left went to my half brother Mr Lavine who lived in South Carolina and was for a time partner with Mr Kane.

Source — Alexander Hamilton to William Jackson, [August 26, 1800]

Because interestingly, John C. Hamilton tells the exact same story in his biographies of his father;

Hamilton was the offspring of a second marriage. His mother's first husband was a Dane, named Lavine, who, attracted by her beauty, and recommended to her mother by his wealth, received her hand against her inclination. The marriage proving unhappy, she applied for and obtained a divorce, and removing to St. Christopher's, there married the father of the subject of these notices, and had by him several sons, of whom Alexander was the youngest.

Source — The Life of Alexander Hamilton, by John Church Hamilton

The falsehood here being that Rachel never acquired the proper divorce they make it seem. Additionally they had James Hamilton Jr. in 1753, and in 1757 or 1755 they had Hamilton (And whatever other possible siblings), before the divorce in 1759.

Nine years after Rachel left Lavien and was with James Sr., Lavien had found himself in a lot of debt, he had to sell most of his plantation, and rent out his few slaves to make enough. Additionally there was a woman living with him, and cleaning for him, so it is likely that he wished to marry her, which lead to him wishing to obtain a divorce summons on February 26, 1759. Lavien claimed Rachel had; “absented herself from [Lavien] for nine years and gone elsewhere, where she has begotten several illegitimate children, so that such action is believed to be more sufficient for him to obtain a divorce from her.” [x] Lavien also said he “had taken care of Rachel's legitimate child [Peter Lavien] from what little he has been able to earn,” while she had, “completely forgotten her duty and let husband and child alone and instead given herself up to whoring with everyone, which things the plantiff are so well known that her own family and friends must hate her for it.” [x] Lavien demanded that Rachel also be denied all legal rights to his property. He warned that if he died before her, Rachel as a widow would possibly seek to take “possession of the estate” and therefore, “not only acquire what she ought not to have but also take this away from his child and give it to her whore-children.” [x]

But the thing is, Rachel didn't even try to refute the allegations, or show up to court; which meant on the 25th of June, Lavien recieved a divorce that permitted him to remarry—but on the other hand, Rachel couldn't. So then, her children were deemed illegitimate, and she was barred from ever marrying again. There haven't been any discovered court or wedding records to show that Rachel may have tried to marry James before the divorce came up a few years later, so there is still the slight possibility Hamilton was right about his parents trying to marry and eventually when the divorce came up later it disallowed their marriage. But until that is actually proven, it seems like it was something Hamilton's parents told him, instead of the actual reality of the situation (Which definitely would have been a comprehensible lie, because Rachel knew full well she was not properly divorced, and even continued to go by “Lavien” on some of the records on the island). And he may have discovered the truth later on. After all, the records were on the island, and he would have found out about the 1759 divorce, or the 1769 probate record, especially since he was a smart kid and would have questioned their situation after his mother's death. He was pushed through several homes and lost everything, I think something would have noticably not been clicking together and he would have asked. But even so, it is likely Hamilton may have continued to repeat the story his parents told him to spare himself and his family roots. Granted, that is mostly all speculation.

John mentions that his father “rarely as he dwelt upon his personal history”, [x] so I don't think it was an open conversation topic with his kids. Although Hamilton did seem to fondly tell his kids about his mother and his time attending a Jewish school, so it wasn't as though he told his kids nothing. Just probably the sugarcoated truth. But I'm also sure the truth may have bypassed the older ones, especially when you consider how aware of politics Philip was at a young age, he was bound to hear at least a few times from his father's political rivals about Hamilton's illegitimacy. Wether he confronted his father about this, wether Hamilton probably tried to cover it up as mere slander, or wether Philip truly believed him, or may have had lingering suspicion; is all speculation. Perhaps that is why he was quite eager to fight for his father's honor when Eacker slandered the Federalist party. But I also think eventually all the kids would have had to have heard sometime in their adulthood about the illegitimacy rumors surrounding their father, but it's complete speculation what happened after. Did they ask their mother about it? Did Eliza also continue the myth that Hamilton used? Who knows. But it seems the family all followed the story that their father wasn't actually a bastard, but some legal mistakes got in the way.

Hope this helps!

[diane-the-phoenix-awen]

My Hamilton story pt. 1

This is the "safe" version. I have an uncensored version available on Amazon which you can read for free if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited. 18+ only, please. You can also buy it on kindle or print paperback on Amazon.

Passion: The Life and Loves of Alexander Hamilton - Book 1: The Islands (Unedited Edition) (Passion: The Life and Loves of Alexander Hamilton - Unedited Editions)

https://a.co/d/eWI5zmd

[lil-gae-disaster]

WE'RE ON THE LAST PANEL GUYS 🗣👻

[ohshit-its1776]

@pinklady6457 's Request

[hampye]

The earliest fact based article about Hamilton's parentage. If anyone can translate this into English...

[therealadothamilton]

[screechingsandwichhologram]

okay so i did some traditional art!!! going to post it tmrrw. just need to figure out how to get a good picture,,,,,,,,

[therealadothamilton]

Jfc 🤦‍♂️🤣🤣🤣🤣

and alex got better but his mother went quick

[rain-on-wax-feathers]

rachel faucette and her sons !! (and.. their father ....)

[pub-lius]

Hey, there! So who knew me watching a silly little 2 hour long musical would lead to me having a silly goofy little blog about it and being really invested in and researching the crap out of the Founding Fathers of a country which I'm not even a citizen of? Anyway, I just wanted to ask if you have any info on Ham's mom and dad, since I can't find much about them on Google and can't buy any books. If you've already been asked this before then sorry, I'll just go look for it

1) I KNOW RIGHT i have a little bit more of an excuse since im an American but this really is a rabbit hole

2) y’all have got to stop apologizing to me for shit i LOVE ALL OF YOU AND YOU HAVE NOTHING TO APOLOGIZE FOR, especially not asking something ive already answered, chances are i haven’t, and there are even better chances that i’ll answer it again or just give you the link to where ive already answered it

and yes i do have information on them! i have information on a lot of people, which is why my dear and beloved son richie once asked me for a bunch of information that i made posts on and eventually assembled into a google doc! which is here! this has information on rachel faucette and james hamilton, as well as james hamilton jr., hamilton’s children, and his wife as well as a bunch of others! i figured id just give you the link in case you need anything else and also bc this has all the information i personally have about them, and i wouldn’t want to leave anything out

hope this helps! and thank you for the ask, they are ALWAYS APPRECIATED AND DONT FORGET THAT

[whencyclopedia]

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton (1755/57-1804) was a lawyer and politician, often recognized as a Founding Father of the United States. He served as George Washington's aide-de-camp during the American Revolution, before going on to become the first US secretary of the treasury and a leader of the Federalist Party. He was mortally wounded in a duel with Aaron Burr in July 1804.

Early Life

Alexander Hamilton was born on the small island of Nevis in the British West Indies on 11 January 1755 or 1757; most modern scholars favor 1755 as his birth year, based on the discovery of a 1768 probate paper that listed his age as 13. He and his older brother, James, Jr., were born out of wedlock to James Hamilton, the wayward younger son of a Scottish laird, and Rachel Faucette Lavien, a married woman who had abandoned her husband after years of unhappy marriage. The couple lived together for several years until 1765, when James Hamilton abruptly deserted his family, either because he had run out of money or because he knew his continued presence would leave the still-married Rachel vulnerable to charges of bigamy. In any case, Rachel was left destitute. To provide for her sons, she opened a modest shop on St. Croix, purchasing her merchandise from her landlord. In early 1768, both Rachel and Alexander contracted yellow fever; while the boy soon recovered, the mother succumbed to the disease on 19 February.

The orphaned Hamilton brothers were sent to live with a cousin, Peter Lytton, but this situation would end after only a year when Lytton committed suicide. The brothers were then split up; James, Jr., was apprenticed to a carpenter, while Alexander found work clerking for the merchant house of Beekman and Cruger. Still only a teenager, Hamilton excelled at his various tasks, which included tracking cargo, helping to chart courses for ships, and calculating prices in multiple currencies. In 1771, he was even left in charge of the firm for five months while the owner was away. Hamilton was a voracious reader who aspired to write works of his own and penned several poems in the early 1770s. In the autumn of 1772, he wrote a letter to his father in which he detailed a hurricane that had recently devastated St. Croix. The letter found its way into publication in a local paper, the Royal Danish-American Gazette, leaving readers dazzled with its vivid and bombastic descriptions:

It seemed as if a total dissolution of nature was taking place. The roaring of the sea and wind, fiery meteors flying about it in the air, the prodigious glare of almost perpetual lightning, the crash of falling houses, and the ear-piercing shrieks of the distressed, were sufficient to strike astonishment into the angels.

(quoted in Chernow, 37)

This essay would prove to be one of the most consequential of Hamilton's life; upon learning that its author was only 17, local community leaders pooled their funds to send the promising young man to college in North America. He landed in Boston in October 1772, before going on to New York City, where he would enroll in King's College (present-day Columbia University) the following year. Hamilton was insatiably ambitious and dove into his studies, which included a classical curriculum of Greek and Latin as well as rhetoric, history, mathematics, and science. His academic career would soon be interrupted, however, by the rising tensions between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies over the question of American liberties, particularly that of taxation without representation. Hamilton became swept up in the Whig (or Patriot) movement, writing a series of anonymous pamphlets in which he defended the Boston Tea Party, supported the actions of the First Continental Congress, and condemned Parliament's Intolerable Acts. He opposed the mob violence often displayed by fellow Patriots; on 10 May 1775, he saved the college's Loyalist president, Myles Cooper, from an angry mob by speaking to the crowd long enough to allow Cooper to escape.

Continue reading...

[therealadothamilton]

Angelica and Peggy definitely owned slaves as did their parents. Source: various letters and Hamilton's cash book.

Hamilton's mother inherited a few (five?) female domestic servants from her mother who were auctioned off or sold after Rachel's death and the money given to Hamilton's half bother Peter Lavien. One of them had a little boy named Ajax who was kind of given to young Alex to play with...? I'm pretty sure Hamilton's maternal grandparents and great-grandparents owned a sugar plantation called Gingerland on the island of Nevis so they would have had enslaved laborers there. My main source is Broadus Mitchell.

Aaron Burr owned slaves and at least some of them he inherited from his late wife. He impregnated one of his enslaved female servants at least twice. There is a historical fiction book about this called The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr but it's mostly made up.

Answering a question on Quora; did the characters own slaves?

Decided to post this here for my own sake lol.

I haven't done any deep digging to find this information, and hopefully it is as accurate as possible. Please correct me + give me the source/evidence if you must!!

Lafayette owned slaves, but he only purchased plantations in order to free them later on. He was very against slavery, and even tried convincing Washington to free his slaves. Unfortunately, Lafayette never managed to really free the slaves. A shame. It's ironic how he became a slave owner in order to execute his plan to abolish slavery.

Washington owned slaves, but he freed the majority of them. He's the only president in America who has enslaved people and freed them. He was a gentleman and a stud, kind and authoritative. Probably had some anger issues, but generally he was quite the man. (doesn't excuse owning slaves tho.)

Now... Did the man himself, Alexander Hamilton, own slaves? There is not enough evidence to support Hamilton owning slaves HIMSELF. He did purchase slaves for his in-laws, however his children and wife did not mention him owning slaves, nor does it say anything in his will about it. So that proves Hamilton not owning slaves >>near his death<<, at least. He was an abolitionist, that's for sure. But we do not know if he actually owned slaves HIMSELF. He surely had SERVANTS, but slaves and servants are different. He did see a fair lot of slavery in the Caribbean where he grew up, I believe, and I do not know if his father owned slaves, but it is not documented that he personally did. And even though his descendent Douglas claims he didn't, it is possible! But as said, he did in fact purchase slaves for his in-laws. (a.k.a. Eliza's family)

Madison owned slaves, yes. I haven't done too much research on him as a person, but he did own slaves.

Jefferson had two sides; either he was kind, socially awkward, a gentleman, or he was a cruel slaveowner. I personally believe, that based on his actions throughout the years, and the fact that he seemed to become more cruel with age, that his wife's death probably caused him to break. However, this does not excuse anything he did. He f*cking r*ped one of his slaves, who is believed to have been around 14 years of age (Sally Hemings, mentioned in the musical). There have been records of slaves being beaten in Monticello, however, there is nothing documented that Jefferson himself hurt his slaves. But when it comes to slavery, it is safe to say that he was rather cruel. Disgusting. Despite originally writing in the Declaration of Independence about slavery, Jefferson wrote that he "suspected black people to be inferior to white people" several years later.

Burr did own some slaves, not many though, at least from what I've read.

King George III, however, is NOT that tyrant that people claim he was. He never owned slaves, and he wasn't as bad as a human as people believe.

Laurens was one of the strongest abolitionist of the time, despite growing up in an environment where slavery was normal. He did not own any slaves himself, nothing recorded (I believe) at least.

Mulligan did own slaves. Haven't done any real research on him, but fairly sure it is true that he owned some slaves.

The Schuyler sisters were members of a wealthy slaveowning family. I am not sure, but I think Angelica owned slaves? I dont know about Peggy, and I dont think there is anything recorded that Eliza HERSELF owned slaves. Her family definitely did tho.

Charles Lee owned slaves, like most military generals.

Samuel Seabury also owned slaves.

Philip Hamilton, obviously, did not own any slaves.

It is important to note that although slavery was wrong and a sin, many people owned slaves or engaged in slavery. Not all slaveowners were cruel, some even treated their slaves as equals. (Which was rare). It was almost like a norm amongst wealthy people, especially people in the south. I think many were influenced by the normalcy, however it is not an excuse. John Laurens grew up in SC, and slavery was very common. Despite that, he was very against it.

Slavery is wrong and disgusting, but in many cases it does NOT define someone as a human. Maybe in Jefferson's case, but people need to remember that not everyone was cruel to their slaves! I do not excuse slavery in any way, and I know I do not have as much as a say in that because I am white. It will always be wrong to degrade someone just because of their race. I mean, slaves were seen as PROPERTY. Which is so incredibly disgusting... Slavery still exists today in some parts of the world, with basically any race being enslaved. White people, black people, asians, etc... Only about 8% of the population is white. (I think?) S3x slaves too. From children to adults. Absolutely disgusting.

But to sum this up, most of the people in the 18th century owned slaves. Not everyone was cruel to them though.

People who have been 'proven' to not have owned slaves:

Philip Hamilton (which speaks for itself)

King George III

John Laurens

(I hope I didn't forget someone)

I am unsure about Maria and James Reynolds. It is possible that James owned some slaves, but I haven't read about it at all, literally have done no research on Reynolds and slaves lmao.

Side note: A slave, James Armistead, later James Armistead Lafayette, who served as a spy under Marquis de Lafayette in the war, supposedly came to own slaves himself. (I am rather unsure if this is actually true or not, so don't take my word for granted lol)

[ohshit-its1776]

Hey! Is it okay if you can draw Alex with his mom, Rachel Faucette (I personally imagine her looking like Salma Hayek for her body and face claim, but you can do whatever!)

Salma Hayek is hispanic, and they are very much not.