Hamilton: What Happened To Maria Reynolds After Her Affair With Alexander

Hamilton on Disney+ features Jasmine Cephas Jones as Maria Reynolds, a married woman who carries on an affair with the title character portrayed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Rather than shamefully hiding the truth, Alexander documents his illicit behavior in the Reynolds Pamphlet. Here’s what happened to Maria in real life, and why some people believe that she was never actually Alexander’s mistress.

In Hamilton’s second act, Maria is prominently featured during “Say No To This” as Alexander explains the circumstances for his first meeting with the wife of James Reynolds (Sydney James Harcourt). According to Miranda’s character, Maria  showed up at his home for help, claiming that Reynolds physically abused her and also cheated with other women. From there, Alexander gives in to Maria’s sexual advances, and Reynolds later demands payments for blackmail purposes. During “Hurricane,” Maria stands behind Alexander and hands him a pen to write the Reynolds Pamphlet. She then disappears from the musical entirely.

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Due to the Reynolds Pamphlet, Maria is mostly known in pop culture for her participation in America’s first sex scandal. She was 23 years old when the affair with Alexander first began. By January 1792, Reynolds wrote to Alexander and actually gave him permission to continue his sexual relationship with Maria, albeit with the stipulation that payments would be necessary. In real life, the Reynolds Pamphlet was published five years later when Alexander realized that documents could be used to disrupt his political ambitions. By that time, Maria and Reynolds had been divorced for several years. Alexander’s former mistress then moved to England with her second husband, Jacob Clingman.

There’s little information available about Maria’s life during the 19th century, though she did marry for a third time in 1806 and settled in Philadelphia. Maria had one daughter named Susan from her marriage to Reynolds, and eventually died at age 59 in 1828. A July 2020 article (via Cherwell) suggests that Hamilton‘s unflattering and sexualized portrayal of Maria positions her as a character with no agency. Whereas Eliza and Angelica Schuyler have strong personalities, Maria is dismissed as a “whore” and fades to the background. According to author Ben Jureidini:

“Maria’s sexuality is presented as a clear antagonist in a play so concerned with reminding us that the history books can make villains out of characters as complicated as Aaron Burr. The text, however, does not tell us what becomes of Maria; she merely fades into the background, her function as a sexually perverse, abused plot device complete. Who tells her story?”

It’s been theorized that Maria never actually had an affair with Alexander. According to historian Tilar J. Mazzeo – the author of the 2018 book Eliza Hamilton – there’s no evidence beyond the Reynolds Pamphlet to confirm a romantic tryst between Alexander and Maria. Mazzeo believes that Alexander may have been trying to cover up a financial scandal by forging letters that he claimed were from Maria. Historian Julian P. Boyd backs up the theory and implies that the grammar “could resemble what an educated man believed an uneducated woman’s love letters to look like.” So, it seems that Hamilton perpetuates a myth that Maria Reynolds was little more than a founding father’s naive mistress.

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Q.V. Hough
(1892 Articles Published)

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Q.V. Hough is a senior writer at Screen Rant. He’s also the founding editor at Vague Visages, and has contributed to RogerEbert.com and Fandor.

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