Letters from an American Farmer (1782) Michel St. John de Crevecoeur

Born Michel Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur In 1735 around Caen, France Came to North America by way of England in 1755 Served with Montcalm’s forces during the assault on For William Henry Settled in upstate New York in 1759 Became a British subject in 1764 Married in 1770 to Mehitable Tippet Returned to France during the Revolution in 1780 Letters from an American Farmer published in 1782 –Wrote under pseudonym J. Hector St. John Returned to North America and learned his wife had died and children were living with neighbors Crevecoeur was French consul in New York City from 1783 to 1790 Returned to France in 1790 and remained there until his death in 1813Biography

Crevecoeur lauded the American Farmer –“we are a people of cultivators” The American Revolution Crevecoeur was targeting Europeans as his audience –“What attachment can a poor European emigrant have for a country where he had nothing?” “his country is now that which gives him land, bread, protection, and consequence.” Some Historical Context

Main Point #1: European immigrants are transformed by their transplantation to America. American society has more quality and more opportunities for self advancement. Americans derive more benefit from their labor than their European counterparts. The greater possibility to receive just reward for one’s labor has inspired the American immigrant and has improved his standard of living. They can even aspire to become land owners, and thus free men! Michel St. John De Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American Main Points: “We [Americans] are all animated with the spirit of an industry which is unfettered and unrestrained, because each person works for himself.” “[American society] is not composed as in Europe, of great lords who possess everything, and a herd of people who have nothing. Here are no aristocratical families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible power giving to a few a very visible one; no great manufactures employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury. The rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other.” “Urged by a variety of motives, here [European immigrants] came. Everything has tended to regenerate them; new laws, a new mode of living, a new social system; here they are become men: in Europe they were as so many useless plants, wanting vegetative mould, and refreshing showers; they withered, and were mowed down by want, hunger, and war; but now by the power of transplantation, like all other plants they have taken root and flourished!”

Michel St. John De Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American Main Points: “A pleasant uniformity of decent competence appears throughout our habitations.” “[Immigrants to America] receive ample rewards for their labours; these accumulated rewards procure them lands, those lands confer on them the title of freemen, and to that title every benefit is affixed which men can possibly require.” “Ubi panis ibi patria [The land I work is my country], is the motto of the emigrants.” “Here [in America] the rewards of [the immigrant’s] industry follows with equal steps the progress of his labour; his labour is founded on the basis of nature, self-interest; can it want a stronger allurement?” “From involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labour, he has passed to toils of a very different nature, rewarded by ample subsistence. –This is an American.”

Michel St. John De Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American Main Points: Main Point #2: American immigrants are transformed by settling in America, and ergo America is transformed into a melting pot. “[Americans] are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race called Americans have arisen…” “Here [in America] individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes.”

Michel St. John De Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American “Some few towns excepted, we [Americans] are tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida. We are a people of cultivators, scattered over an immense territory,…united by the silken bands of mild government, all respecting in laws, without dreading their power, because they are equitable.” “Here [the American immigrant] beholds fair cities, substantial villages, extensive fields, an immense country filled with decent houses, good roads, orchards, meadows, and bridges, where an hundred years ago all was wild, woody, and uncultivated!” “Many ages will not see the shores of our great lakes replenished with inland nations, nor the unknown bounds of North America entirely peopled. Who can tell how far it extends? Who can tell the millions of men whom it will feed and contain? For no European foot has as yet travelled half the extent of this mighty continent!” The American Yeoman Main Point #3: Americans are farmers on the edge of a great continent with untold promise.

The document gave an idealized view on the way of life for an American –Attempts to define “what is an American?” The document was important to the poor European, giving him hope that he too could succeed in a new land. It praises the idea of a melting pot and the making of a new society: “…individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men.” “That strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country….” Historical Significance