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Hector St John Crèvecoeur’s Letters From An American Farmer

Hector St John Crèvecoeur’s Letters From An American Farmer – Crevecoeur Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur was born in Caen, Normandy. Only after he was in America did he change his name to J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur. He came to North America in 1755, enlisted in the Canadian militia during the French and Indian War; served as a surveyor and cartographer. After leaving the military, he traveled through New York, Pennsylvania, and the southern colonies, making a living as a surveyor and trader with Native Americans.

In 1769, he purchased farmland in Orange County, New York, married, and raised a family. The American Revolution disrupted this pastoral life. A Tory sympathizer, Crèvecoeur left for France, ostensibly to reclaim family lands, and returned to postwar America as French consul in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In his absence, his wife died, his farm was burned by Native Americans, and his children moved in with strangers. He worked as a successful diplomat for several years before returning to France in 1780. Two years later, he published Letters from an American Farmer, recording his American observations from Pennsylvania to Charles Town and the western frontier. Using the image of Farmer James, who came not from Orange County, New York, but from a farm near Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Crevecoeur praised agrarian life. He pointed out the vast fields and prosperous houses in what had been a desert only a hundred years ago. He expressed optimism that positive change would continue through the humanitarian movement, while noting the brutality of slavery in the southern states and the lawlessness of the western frontier. His book documents the transformation of colonial America into the American Republic. He asked the important question: “What is an American?” And he defined one of the formative features of future nature: a melting pot of peoples and cultures.

Hector St John Crèvecoeur’s Letters From An American Farmer

Hector St John Crèvecoeur's Letters From An American Farmer

The relevance of the book contributed to its great success. Its success undoubtedly helped popularize the idea of America as a classless, opportunity-rich society. After 1790, Crèvecoeur himself never returned to America, but spent the rest of his life in France.

On The Rhetorical Devices Of An American Farmer: [essay Example], 1751 Words

Figure 1. “J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, “Grace Hammond, West Virginia Community College, “J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, ” Wikimedia, Public Domain.

American Literature I: An Anthology of Early Civil War American Texts by Wendy Courant is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.317St. John de Crèvecoeur, J. Hector (1735-1813) Letters of an American Farmer, Some Provincial Circumstances, Manners, &c.

Illustrating Certain Provincial Circumstances, Manners, and Customs, and Conveying Some Ideas of the Condition of the People of North America

First American edition, 12mo, missing both folding maps, bound in contemporary sheepskin, boards separated, worn, spine leather cracked, ex-library with stamps under title and at foot of several text leaves, evenly toned, one leaf. torn, legible and usable copy, with original edges restored, 6 3/4 x 4 inches.

Letters From An American Farmer; Describing Certain Provincial Situations, Manners, And Customs, Not Generally Known; And Conveying Some Idea Of The Late And Present Interior Circumstances Of The British Colonies In North

Chapters entitled “What is American,” “An Account of Whaling,” “The Sufferings of the Frontier Man,” and “The Horrible Treatment of the Negro Slave,” along with descriptions of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, particularly “Peculiar Customs of Nantucket.”