Pride and Pleasure

If it hadn’t been for the Revolutionary War, things might have been very different for the two women Alexander Hamilton came to describe as his “dear brunettes.” Angelica and Elizabeth Schuyler, daughters of colonial Hudson Valley aristocracy, would have followed their family’s expectations, making dynastic marriages and supervising substantial households—but they didn’t.

Instead, they became embroiled in the turmoil of America’s insurrection against Great Britain, and rebelled themselves, in ways as different as each sister was from the other, against the destiny mapped out for them. Glamorous Angelica, who sought fulfillment in attachments to powerful men, eloped with a war profiteer and led a luxurious life, charming Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the Prince of Wales.

Eliza, too candid for flirtation and uninterested in influence or intrigue, married a penniless outsider, Alexander Hamilton, and devoted herself to his career; but after his appointment as America’s first treasury secretary, she was challenged by the public and private controversies that plagued him—not least of all the attraction that grew between him and her adored sister.

When tragedy followed, everything changed for both women: one was deprived of her animating spirit, while the other gained a new, self-determined life.