Alexander Hamilton was born on January 11, 1755 (other historical evidence shows 1757) on the island of Nevis, in the Leeward group of the British West Indies. He was the illegitimate son of a common-law marriage between a poor itinerant Scottish merchant of aristocratic descent and an English-French Huguenot mother who was a planter’s daughter. In 1766, after the father had moved his family elsewhere in the Leewards to St. Croix in the Danish (now the United States) Virgin Islands, he returned to St. Kitts while his wife and two sons remained on St. Croix.

His mother, who opened a small store to make ends meet, and a Presbyterian clergyman provided Hamilton with primary education, and he learned to speak fluent French. About the time of his mother’s death in 1768, he became an apprentice clerk in a mercantile establishment at Christiansted, St. Croix, whose proprietor became one of his benefactors. They recognized his ambition and superior intelligence and raised funds for his education.

In 1772, Hamilton traveled to New York City with letters of introduction. Patrons he met there arranged for him to attend Barber’s Academy at Elizabethtown (present Elizabeth), New Jersey. During this time, he met and stayed with William Livingston, who would one day be a fellow signer of the Constitution. Late the following year, 1773, Hamilton entered King’s College (later Columbia College and University) in New York City, but the American Revolution interrupted his studies.

Although not yet 20 years of age, in 1774-75, Hamilton wrote several widely read pro-Whig pamphlets. Right after the war broke out, he accepted an artillery captaincy and fought in the principal campaigns of 1776-77. In the latter year, he won the rank of lieutenant colonel, joined General George Washington’s staff as Secretary and aide-de-camp, and soon became his close confidant.

In 1780, Hamilton married New Yorker Elizabeth Schuyler, whose family was wealthy and politically powerful; they were to have eight children. In 1781, after some disagreements with Washington, he took a command position under Lafayette in the Yorktown, Virginia, campaign (1781). He resigned from his commission that November.

Hamilton then studied law in Albany and quickly entered practice, but public service soon drew him. He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1782-83. In the latter year, he established a law office in New York City. Because he wanted to strengthen the central government, he represented his state at the Annapolis Convention in 1786, where he urged calling the Constitutional Convention.

In 1787, Hamilton served in the Legislature, which appointed him a delegate to the convention. He played a surprisingly small role in the debates because he was often absent for legal business. His extreme nationalism put him at odds with most of the delegates, and he was frustrated by the conservative views of his two fellow delegates from New York. However, he served on the Committee of Style and was the only of the three delegates from his state to sign the finished document. Hamilton’s part in New York’s ratification the following year was substantial, though he felt the Constitution was deficient in many respects. Against determined opposition, he waged a strenuous and successful campaign, including collaborating with John Jay and James Madison to write The Federalist. In 1787, Hamilton was again elected to the Continental Congress.

When the new government began in 1789, Hamilton won the position of Secretary of the Treasury. He began to place the nation’s disorganized finances on a sound footing. In a series of reports (1790-91), he presented a program to stabilize national finances and shape the country’s future as a powerful, industrial nation. He proposed establishing a national bank, funding the national debt, assuming state war debts, and encouraging manufacturing, laying the foundation for the U.S. national financial system.

Hamilton’s policies soon conflicted with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Their disputes over his pro-business economic program, sympathies for Great Britain, disdain for the common man, and opposition to the principles and excesses of the French Revolution helped form the first U.S. party system. It pitted Hamilton and the Federalists against Jefferson and Madison and the Democratic-Republicans.

Meanwhile, when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied in Presidential electoral votes in 1800, Hamilton threw valuable support to Thomas Jefferson. In 1804, when Burr sought the governorship of New York, Hamilton again defeated him. That same year, Burr, taking offense at remarks he believed to have originated with Hamilton, challenged him to a duel, which took place at present Weehawken, New Jersey, on July 11. Mortally wounded, Hamilton died the next day. He was in his late forties when he died. He was buried in Trinity Churchyard in New York City.