PART ONE
LOVE AND REVOLUTION
1768–1781
CHAPTER ONE
January 1768
Christiansted, St. Croix
“The leader of runaway slaves shall be pinched three times with red-hot iron, and then hung … Each other runaway slave shall lose one leg.”
Proclamation of the Royal Council, Danish West Indies, 1733
THE BOY FROWNED, PRESSED A FOLDED handkerchief to his nose, and scanned the crowd for the third time. The noxious tang of the Spanish slaver that had sailed into port at daybreak was overpowering. Soldiers stationed themselves every few paces to oversee the off-loading of Africans, but blacks still outnumbered whites ten to one. Women balancing baskets of green coconuts on their heads wound through the press of laborers going about their usual work alongside the sparkling sea. The dock was crowded.
Damn Ajax, Alexander thought. Where had he gone? It could take hours to find the servant, who was probably flirting with a girl when he ought to be rolling a barrel to the store at 34 Company Street.
Passersby may have thought Alexander Hamilton unnaturally serious for an eleven-year-old, but he had much on his mind and a leaky enterprise to keep afloat.
Colored stevedores loading barrels of sugar for North America appeared not to notice the repellent miasma that signaled a long voyage with a packed hold. Neither did the long chain gang of newly arrived Africans, greased for auction, who now stood naked and impassive next to the seawall. One towered above the rest: a tall man whose cheeks bore the ritual scars that marked manhood in another world. But it was the fresh bite of a switch across his temple that drew the eye. Blood had run under the rusty iron collar around his bare throat.
They would need to clean that up, Alexander thought, or jeopardize the sale price.
A man with one leg sat on a nearby barrel repairing a fishing net for his master. Crabs scuttled and clicked inside the wicker basket atop the merchant’s table next to him. A towering brougham with embossed gold panels rolled into the busy square and an elegant elbow clad in yellow satin rested on its carved window frame. Young Mrs. Koenig must be headed to church. The crowd parted. Not ten yards away a stray goose flapped into the wake left by the magnificent carriage.
Alexander spotted the geese-girl, the one Ajax liked. Her small white flock clustered around her skirt while Ajax’s chapped knuckles curled above hers on the herding pole. The girl’s bright smile indicated she didn’t notice the bird’s truancy. He would get her in trouble, too.
“Ajax!” Alexander hissed. A gentleman did not raise his voice even to a servant, Mama said. He hurried across the gap and tapped the tall, good-looking boy on the shoulder. “Ajax!”
Ajax glanced down unsurprised and smiled. The boys had known each other since infancy. Both recalled when Ajax, one year older, could beat Alexander at every game except marbles. “Master Alexander. Monstrous sorry. Just coming.” He looked back at the girl and slid his hand closer to hers on the shepherd’s crook.
Of course, such a comely lass was hard to ignore. Alexander resisted looking directly at her, though he noticed the way the orange turban complemented her flawless dark skin. They had first spotted her in the marketplace last summer. She was pretty even then, but Ajax swore her breasts were bigger every week. At night in the dark the thought of such things had become an exquisite torment.
“Mama needs that flour today, not tomorrow,” he said to Ajax. He met the slave girl’s warm brown eyes for the barest instant—it was impossible not to, she was so fetching—then looked toward the bird waddling in the direction of the fort whose cannon-studded ramparts and dank prison cells protected Christiansted. “Get the goose,” he told Ajax. “Then back to the store. The brig sails for Providence on the tide.”
Alexander turned away to forestall backtalk. He could count on Ajax—once in motion—especially when they were in public. Mama told him he must learn to be a master and give orders, and it had gotten easier, but his old playmate still balked like a billy goat if no one else was watching.
The walk from the docks wasn’t long even though Christiansted was the largest town on St. Croix—an emerald paradise that was part of a chain Columbus named the Virgin Islands in honor of a saint who led her entourage of eleven thousand maidens into an ambush on the road to Rome. There was a lesson in that, Alexander thought, when the Jewish woman who tutored him looked out to sea after telling the tale.
He walked slowly so as not to trip in his brother’s old shoes, which tended to slip at the heel. A young squire exiting a coffeehouse nearly bumped into him and Alexander doffed his cap, but the silk-tailored gentleman shot him a disdainful look and kept walking. He must know, Alexander thought. Christiansted was a small town. A blush crept over his cheeks and he picked his way more guardedly along the busy lane.