Prince of Darkness

Alexander wasn t the only controversial Hamilton from New York. After prodigious research, Professor Shane White rescues Jeremiah G. Hamilton from oblivion. -- The New York Times Chronicles how the complex and notorious Hamilton bucked racial stereotypes and social expectations to make his unprecedented wealth...a fascinating picture of the enigmatic figure. Ebony If this Hamilton were around today, he might have his own reality TV show or be a candidate for president...An interesting look at old New York, race relations and high finance. New York Post Like Mr. Hamilton himself, Shane White makes the impossible possible. Only the indispensable historian of black New York could have brought the Prince of Darkness back to life. He makes smudgy newspapers and dusty court records pulse with the ambition, treachery, and hilarity of a different age of boom, bust, and dubious racial progress. A great read about a one-of-a-kind who nevertheless has much to tell us about Gotham and U.S. history. David Waldstreicher, The Graduate Center, City University of New York White details his incredible life, marriage to a white woman, and contentious presence on Wall Street, in the process revealing the ways that historians reconstruct the past. An engaging look at an extraordinary man. Booklist Hamilton's story is gripping; so, too, is his puzzling near disappearance from the historical record. White does an excellent job drawing out the facts of Hamilton's life and supplementing them with details from the history of Wall Street and of other African American New Yorkers of the era. Library Journal A well-told, stereotype-busting tale about a nineteenth century black financier who dared to be larger than life, and got away with it! Elizabeth Dowling Taylor, author of A SLAVE IN THE WHITE HOUSE Villain? Hustler? Financial Genius? Black Horatio Alger? The White Man's worst nightmare? With panoramic vision and panache, Shane White unravels the mystery that is Jeremiah G. Hamilton. Robin D. G. Kelley, author of THELONIOUS MONK: The Life and Times of an American Original (2009) Pieces together the remarkable career of an antebellum Wall Street broker who was married to a white woman, ambitious, ruthless, successful, and black: in short, a racist's nightmare come to life. ... Superb scholarship and a sprightly style recover an unaccountably overlooked life. Kirkus Reviews In Prince of Darkness, Shane White employs the superb skills of an accomplished historian to narrate the compelling story of a New York Hamilton who commanded front page news attention in his day and faded into obscurity in the years that followed. Jeremiah Hamilton was not only America's first black millionaire, he was a ruthless businessman and trader who sparked fear, contempt, jealousy and a range of other emotions from contemporaries and adversaries. A fine read, I highly recommend this important new book. Earl Lewis, President, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and co-author with Heidi Ardizzone, LOVE ON TRIAL Shane White's impeccably researched book offers a compelling history of Jeremiah Hamilton, America's first black Wall Street millionaire. Prince of Darkness tells the complex story of race and wealth in antebellum New York, with a mysterious and sometimes purposefully ambiguous character at its center. From the islands of the Caribbean to Gotham, Hamilton welded together grit and intellectual agility that propelled him into unimaginable wealth. Unlike his African American contemporaries, Jeremiah Hamilton was less concerned with respectability politics or racial uplift. The Prince of Darkness was a man who wanted to be rich, and nothing would stand in his way. Erica Armstrong Dunbar, author of A FRAGILE FREEDOM: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City At a time when Gotham was virtually inventing segregation, long before the South did, a black man bulled his way into Wall Street, the city's whitest citadel, and ruthlessly made a fortune there. He challenged social codes, too, marrying a white woman, living in a mansion, and was nearly lynched from a lamppost for his transgressions. Yet after his vivid life Jeremiah G. Hamilton vanished completely from New York's collective memory. Happily Professor White, in a bravura display of historical sleuthing, has brought the so-called Prince of Darkness back into the light, and illuminated Hamilton's city as well. Mike Wallace, co-author of GOTHAM, winner of the Pulitzer Prize