It was the year Hamilton enrolled at King’s College, but it would go down in history for another reason: the Boston Tea Party. Relations between the colonies and Britain had been strained for some time.
But there were plenty of distractions to keep him from his books. He began his studies at Elizabethtown Academy in New Jersey before moving on to King’s College in New York to read law.
Hamilton disembarked in Boston around 1772. The American colonies were already on the brink of revolution when Hamilton arrived. The money he collected would pay for Hamilton’s move to the American colonies. The text was so moving that Knox not only had it published but used it as an example of Hamilton’s talents to raise funds for his education. It told the heart-wrenching story of how a hurricane had ravaged Saint Croix. Though he could have hardly known it at the time, this would be his ticket out of the Caribbean. Hamilton soon developed a powerful voice as a writer. Like many young men before him, Hamilton was drawn to poetry – particularly of the vain and sentimental kind – but he was also asked to write reports at work. It was in Knox’s collection that Hamilton eventually came across a volume which inspired him to take up the pen himself. Taking a liking to him, Knox offered Hamilton access to his vast private library. A chance encounter with a church minister called Henry Knox, a recent arrival in Saint Croix, opened new doors. When he wasn’t working, Hamilton could usually be found with a book in his hands. It was here that Hamilton first learned the finer points of trade policy, monetary exchange rates and international relations. His learning stood him good stead: as a teenager, he landed a job as a clerk at Beekman and Cruger, a New York-based trading firm which did business in the American colonies and further afield. A bookish child from an early age, Hamilton devoured countless volumes in both English and French, the latter language a gift from his francophone mother. Disinherited and orphaned, Alexander and his two-year-old brother James were alone in the world.īut it wasn’t all tragedy. He would survive his mother wasn’t so lucky.
Two years later, after moving to the island of Saint Croix, Hamilton and his mother contracted a fever. Hamilton’s father abandoned his partner and children when Hamilton was 11. It was a hard start to life, but things were going to get worse. His mother was unmarried at the time, and Hamilton was stigmatized as a bastard. The date – 11 January – is recorded, but we can’t be sure of the year: some sources give 1755, others 1757. Alexander Hamilton was born on the Caribbean island of Nevis.
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