Andrew Porwancher on the founding father’s Jewish roots and relationships.

This is the untold story of the founding father’s likely Jewish birth and upbringing—and its revolutionary consequences for understanding him and the nation he fought to create.

For more than two centuries, Alexander Hamilton’s youth in the Caribbean has remained shrouded in mystery, as he preferred, with most biographers assuming a Christian boyhood. But with his life in focus like never before thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s global hit musical Hamilton, historian Andrew Porwancher debunks a string of myths. He looks not only at Hamilton’s background but the unique relationship he cultivated with the Jewish community, striking given the pernicious antisemitism of the era.

In a new nation torn between democratic promises and discriminatory practices, he fought for a republic in which Jew and Gentile would stand as equals.

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Andrew Porwancher is the Wick Cary Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma. His books include The Devil Himself: A Tale of Honor, Insanity, and The Birth of Modern America.