By: Emily Moseley
For my historical annotation project, I chose to delve deeper into the exchange of letters between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr during the Summer of 1804. My goal by the end of this project is to be able to break down each argument/statement that Hamilton and Burr present to see why they’re feeling that way, what would have brought up that topic, and the nature of the country at that point in time. Even though these letters are few and quick, you can see the quick escalation of feelings and rash decisions being made within this short series of communication.
The reason I chose this series of documents, is because they were a more private matter: not something where Hamilton had to be showy or convincing to the public. This is probably the most raw form of communication that we will see from Hamilton since he took writing more seriously than anyone else at the time. It has his way of communicating his thoughts and bringing people together. This was his way of making a change and forming the United States; however, in his letters we get to see a different side of him: a more direct and almost snarky Hamilton comes out in these letters to Burr. I thought this would make for a more interesting annotation because I can try to look into the minds of two of this nation’s most influential founders.
The research that comes along with letters like this is difficult, because they’re not published pieces of writing like the Federalist Papers or the Reynolds Pamphlet. The letters exchanged between Hamilton and Burr are, at the time, a private matter unknown to the public. Therefore, we lack the reaction of the general population to give us an idea of the impact of these letters at the time. Since language has since evolved from 1804, I cannot experience the full impact of Hamilton’s and Burr’s words since I do not know the meaning in which they were intended to have. This takes even more research to simply understand what they are trying to reference or even what tone they are using when talking about something.
My biggest challenge right now is really just learning how to google. I know it sounds simple, but “googling” is a true skill and a good one to have when doing research like this. I’m learning to string together key words to find documents that tie Hamilton or Burr to different events in history. This lets me look at just their connection rather than an overview or document that is referencing the historical event as a whole. By getting better at this, I can cut my research time significantly and work smarter, not harder.