Notes

Did John Adams Call Alexander Hamilton a “Creole Bastard?”
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During “The Adams Administration” number from the musical Hamilton, Aaron Burr claims that John Adams “privately calls [Alexander Hamilton] ‘creole bastard’ in his taunts.” Adams was certainly no fan of Hamilton’s illegitimacy and foreign birth, but did he actually use this particular slur? Or is this one more example of the musical’s many divergences from actual history?
There are two references to the phrase in Ron Chernow’s acclaimed Alexander Hamilton, the biography that inspired the musical. The first, on page 511, cites Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation by Richard Norton Smith. In the context of the passage, the phrase was stated in private after Adams became aware of Hamilton’s electioneering in favor of Thomas Pinckney in the presidential election of 1796. Later, on page 522, Chernow details Adams’s focus on Hamilton’s lineage, and the insult here leads us to a Don R. Gerlach’s book on Philip Schuyler, Proud Patriot.
We learn on page 400 of Gerlach’s book that Schuyler did not care about Hamilton’s background as he courted his daughter, but “creole bastard” is alleged to have been used by both John and Abigail Adams. The quote in the passage lacks a citation at the end of the sentence, but the end of the paragraph leads us to Page Smith’s two-volume biography of Adams published in 1962 when new primary documents became available.
Smith’s biography details Adams’s perennial obsession with posterity and his expectation that the other Founders’ accomplishments would shine brighter as time progressed while his faded into the black of night. We also learn of Abigail’s sentiment that Hamilton is an 18th-century Julius Caesar, which would be next to the devil in those days, a ruiner of republics. But we don’t encounter “creole bastard” until page 1043, where Smith claims that Adams used the slur in private after receiving an insolent letter from Hamilton, who was serving as general of America’s Army, during the election of 1800. Smith suggests the insult made its way to Hamilton’s ears through one of his many creatures in the Adams administration, such as Oliver Wolcott Jr.
But Smith provides no citation for three paragraphs; and when he does, it’s to a letter from Wolcott to Hamilton warning him against publishing a pamphlet contra Adams. There is no reference to the words coming out of Adams’s mouth, and so the trail runs cold. At this point, we must return to Richard Norton Smith’s book.
Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation has this phrase in reference to Hamilton on page 284, but we are back in 1796, during the first presidential election without Washington on the ballot. Here, Hamilton is referred to as “a bastard” by both John and Abigail Adams, and the context implies they said it privately. Interestingly, Richard Smith cites Page Smith’s biography, particularly pages two and 907–909, but the references focus on Abigail’s well-founded mistrust of Hamilton, and “creole bastard” is nowhere to be found. However, it has been at least implied that John and Abigail called Hamilton this in private, since he is given just about every classical insult one could imagine in their letters.
The Massachusetts Historical Society’s website houses transcribed digital documents, including 1,160 letters exchanged by John and Abigail Adams over the years 1762–1801. It is impressive that we have so many in such continuity, and the search features are most useful. The database also includes the diaries of John Adams, as well as his autobiography, all of which is digitized and searchable. However, a quick cut of “creole” yields no results.
No results? 1,160 letters and not one instance of this grave appellation passing between the mouths of our two New Englanders? There are plenty of references to Hamilton himself, some 39 in their letters, but even searching for the word “bastard” yields but five results, and these are from John’s diaries, and none refer to Hamilton. Our trail is now utterly cold.
O Clio, where shall we turn in our search?
Perhaps the National Archives? Again, our search is in vain. “creole bastard” is not to be found in an archive of 183,000 documents across the lives of Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison.
Even combing through the letters sent from Hamilton to Adams here, we find no letters in the year 1796. At best, we find his letter from the year 1800, dated August 1st, wherein Hamilton complains that he has been associated with a “British Faction” among the Federalists, which Adams did not like, since he had maintained the Washington administration’s neutrality towards Europe. Worth noting is that the portly president never responded to this letter or to Hamilton’s follow-up. Hamilton, however, published his critical pamphlet on the Adams presidency in late October.
Even the Connecticut Digital Archive, which contains letters between Wolcott Jr. and Hamilton, offers little help. The letters are just scans which have not been made into plain text. I have gone over some of these, but would need to spend quite a bit of time to become familiar with his letters. Where does this even leave us?
Is it plausible that Adams would have called Hamilton this bellicose slur? It’s certainly within the realm of possibility. It could be the case that there are papers of Wolcott Jr.’s which could illuminate our way, but one would think proof positive would have found its way into Chernow’s research for this biography, which was published in 2005, given its glowing admiration of the man. Of all the sources we’ve examined, the letters between John and Abigail Adams were likeliest to yield proof, the letters being private and both of them being staunch New England moralists who let words fly like arrows in private.
We might ask what would have happened if there were irrefutable proof? Considering what we know of Hamilton’s death, and that Adams kept him from invading Spanish Florida, why didn’t Hamilton challenge Adams to a duel? He was certainly the better shot, and he thought he had cause for taking insult at the president’s conduct towards him. Yet, even here, Hamilton would have killed a president and man of his own party. Still, that wouldn’t have stopped him from beginning the ritual to deal with affairs of honor.
Can we conclusively prove that John Adams, in any capacity, called Alexander Hamilton a “creole bastard?” I do not think we can.
The casual reader of and listener to Hamilton might wonder at this, given how the musical abuses Adams so badly that he comes off as a bigger bastard than Burr. Well, it is because men of Adams’s character are hard to find, harder to get into office, and hardest to understand given what we know about the pressures of politics. He could have taken the United States to war against France, which would have probably guaranteed his reelection. We could also be speaking French right now. Indeed, he bet his second term on peace with France, despite the XYZ Affair, and through his son John Quincy, was able to buy it at that price.
How many politicians today are willing to fight both the opposition and one’s own party to find a diplomatic solution to conflict? What about receiving a delegation from Toussaint Louverture regarding trade between Haiti and the United States? Furthermore, one of Jefferson’s greatest contributions to his country, the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, was predicated on a friendly relationship with France, which was only attainable due to the stoic course set by Adams. Do we give him credit? Certainly not, because Americans have a terrible habit of thinking of presidential terms as hard-cuts between scenes in a film.
It is doubtful that John Adams ever called Hamilton a “creole bastard.” Yet the public will go on thinking he did, because Hollywood and Broadway write our histories now.

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