Washington and Hamilton

The Alliance That Forged America

de Stephen F. Knott, Tony Williams

From the Introduction... Theirs was an unlikely alliance, for George Washington and Alexander Hamilton could not have been more different. Washington was a gentleman farmer from the patrician colony of Virginia and the owner of a great estate enriched by the labor of African slavery. As a rising member of the Virginia gentry, he satisfied the expectations of his station by entering into public service. Hamilton, on the other hand, was an illegitimate child--the “bastard brat of a Scotch peddler,” as John Adams brusquely put it once--and an immigrant from the West Indies. A self-made man, he made his way to America on his own and earned his positions in the army and the government. Despite their differences, Washington and Hamilton shared a lot of common ground. They collaboratively pursued their vision of a continental republic throughout the Revolutionary War and through the founding of the nation. They both embraced the revolutionary ideals of the era, though with Hamilton usually playing a subordinate role to Washington, who was seen as essential to the successful creation of America.