Thing I learned about Aaron Burr

[xiphias]

When Aaron Burr was vice president of the United States, he was tried for treason for putting together a plan to conquer Louisiana and capture it from the United States, then conquering a big part of Texas, which was then part of Mexico which was then part of Spain, and then take the whole thing over for himself. Which would mean he'd have conquered the entire middle portion of the continent up to Canada.

To be fair-ish -- we're here talking about a part of the United States that was only just bought and wasn't really, like, INTEGRATED into the United States. And, while there was a lot of evidence for the plot, there's a good chance that it was made up.

Still -- the idea kind of gives a different image of Burr than the one that you get from the musical HAMILTON. Lis disagrees, saying that it's a logical progression of his character as the musical went on, after "The Room Where It Happens."

Me, I think there's something of a distinction between "I want to work my way into a position of influence in the government" and "why don't I just go ahead and conquer everything from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, and the Rio Grande to Canada?"

Comments

[snippy]

I've been listening to the audiobook of the Chernow biography of Hamilton, and it portrays Burr much more fully and ambiguously, as one would expect, from the Burr of the musical. Burr is an understandable person, someone like people I know today, with believable and good motives: they're just different, not bad.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I'm listening to "Wait For It" from the musical as I read this comment, and it .... doesn't sound like the sort of song written for a unilateral simplistic villain.