Research Paper on 'Letters from an American Farmer' by J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

Although the present day American is a totally a different person, at the close of the Revolutionary War the same individual was a European immigrant impacted by the nature of the American continent. In St. Jean de Crevecoeur’s perspective, an American is a race that results from a mixture of Swedes, Dutch, French, Irish, Scotch, and Englishmen (48). This race consists of unique type of people who are not governed by laws as strict as they experienced in Europe. They are a breed of people who had no home and no country in Europe. This paper discusses what the American was thought to be, in view of St. Jean de Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer.

As a person that has grown most of my own food, without chemicals or engine powered equipment, for the last 15 years and lesser so for many more years I can relate to some degree what it may have been like for a farmer in the 1800’s (I even live in a house built in 1850).

When the first American settlement on Roanoke Island was established in 1585 it’s primary force, Sir Walter Raleigh, had no idea that this “New World” would evolve into one of the most powerful voices in the modern world. But before it developed it would have to shaped by it’s founders from the Western world. Two of the largest voices in America’s early development are John Smith, who with a group of English merchants, hoped to get rich in this new land, and William Bradford, a puritan farmer who was one of the most influential men involved with the Mayflower compact. In their two pieces they both convey America as a place to escape but

America — a land known for its ideals of freedom and new opportunities, a nation built under the idea that every man and women is created equal. However, the definition of what makes a person an American is entirely different from what it is that makes up America, itself. J.Hector St. John Crevecoeur, author of Letters from an American Farmer (1782), exposes what he believes makes an American. However, when compared to the standards of what makes an American in today’s world, it seems that becoming an American then was much simpler then, than it is today. The definition of an American is always evolving due to the influences of our changing nation. During a simpler time, Crevecoeur defined an American as someone of European

Throughout history society has to go through many changes that not only affect many of the people but also the areas around the transformation. The main point of Fredrick Jackson Turner’s thesis is what the real essence of America is, and how we’re all influenced by the many changes we have to go through. He believes that American history should not be focused on the extension of European enterprise. The society will have to realize that America will have to be emancipated because of the fact that we had a country with an unlimited amount of boundaries and have to come to realization that we have many closed-spaced limits. The views in the seminal essay share his thoughts on the idea of how the frontier shaped

The often told story of America’s founding begins the Founding fathers waged a revolution and created a unique place called the United States of America. This story may include the early Jamestown colony and puritan colonists, and at times deal with the depollution and dispossession of the America’s native inhabitants. However frequently the complex nature of America’s prerevolutionary era is left out. Daniel Richter offers a refreshing non-teleological revision by showing that the United States has a much deeper history. Richter presents America as a nation with multiple pasts that stretch back as far as the middle ages. These pasts, he argues, continue to be felt in the present. Richter’s history utilizes a vast array of primary sources and his cultural history spans more than seven centuries. Richter works to recover the histories of an intermingling sort of individuals from North America, Europe, and Africa. The struggle for control of land and resources of these individuals took place in a global context. This multilayer struggle gradually gave rise to a distinctive American culture. Richter argues that by dissecting and understanding this culture on its own—and not as a build-up to an inevitable revolution—reveals the origins of American history.

In his essay to the 1782 society, J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur portrays colonial America. While using a confident tone, Crevecoeur discusses in great splendor the uniqueness of the American society and the opportunities the country holds. He writes to purposefully draw individuals, particularly those within European countries, to the American society through his optimism. He does this effectively by using strong metaphors, selective word choice, and adjusting the syntax of the writing.

The term American Experience refers to the idea of America as a place with endless possibilities and opportunities for everyone, especially in a religious sense emerging from the religious conflicts in Europe during the 1500s and 1600s. However, the term also includes the reality that the earliest settlers encountered, which did not always match their expectations. Early American literature written by Captain John Smith, William Bradford, Mary Rowlandson, and Benjamin Franklin present their personal American Experience. While the different authors offer perspective on a multitude of aspects of the American life, such as religion, dealing with the Natives, economy, and virtues, their conclusion is similar: America can be everything it promises,

In 1776, while the rhetoric of freedom and liberty was thick in the gentle wind of Boston, Providence, New York, Albany, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Williamsburg, and Charleston, fully 20 percent of the population of the newly christened United American States — one in five — were owned as property and sold like 
Cows. Uncovering this bewildered me and got me queasy to my tummy.

In his monograph, William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic, Alan Taylor uses the life of William Cooper, a man who rose from humble beginnings to become a land speculator and a member of the U.S. Congress, to depict the transitions that occurred on the frontier of the early American Republic. He proves that William’s life is a pure example of the transition happening in the frontier communities of America, in terms of politics and society. In Taylor’s thesis, the American Revolution created opportunities for new men to make money and to build a name for themselves. The Revolution left behind a legacy of equality, and with the expansion of the settlers, values of the colonial past were questioned,

What does it mean to be an American? In today's day and age, the general perception of an American is to be free, free to practice any religion, free to speak your mind, free in general. However, America has only been able to be perceived as a promised land due to the obstacles and barriers that have been challenged by early Americans. From having to accept others religious beliefs to the abolishment of slavery. A good example is J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer (1782). Letters from an American Farmer is a collection of twelve letters written from the perspective of a fictional character. These letters do a magnificent job at emphasizing on how America is similar to the environment and the people who feed

The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) restricted the production of crops. The AAA encouraged farmers to not only limit, but also to “destroy their crops” in an effort to help the economy (“Farm Relief”, 2002, p. 10). While the government attempted to support unsuccessful farmers, landlords took advantage of the opportunity to make a profit. The AAA’s scarcity program allowed for landlords in the cotton-growing regions of the South to force sharecroppers and tenant farmers off of the land (Watkins, 1970, p. 193). As some landowners were outraged at the thought of ruining their produce, others went through with the

The early 1800s in America were a tumultuous time. Fresh off the Revolutionary War, America was faced with the daunting task of finding her identity and creating new government and new ways of life. This was also a time of great religious change, in that the Second Great Awakening was sweeping the nation. America’s deep Puritan and Calvinist roots were being challenged head on as the Evangelicals spread a new message that salvation was no longer predestined, but was available to all if one chose it. A great duality was emerging in the ideas of boundless freedom versus the need for a central government, demand for security in the form of Constitutional rights versus the hypocrisy that inferior races were not included as “all men”, and the new idea that God’s love was available to all instead of the chosen few. The shedding of old ideas created a sense of excitement and possibility, yet also a fear of the unknown. If we apply Mary Russell Mitford’s observation that “there are few things that give a completer [sic] picture of the habits of living, and the ways of thinking of a foreign country, than it’s lighter literature” to this period in American History, we get a sense of the loss of certainty, discontent, and hypocrisy that was present at the time.

America has a long history of agrarian thought that has resulted in a variety of agrarian ideals. Agrarian ideals first developed after J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur published Letters from an American History. He focused on a vision of American identity and agrarian ideals by contrasting America with Europe. In addition, John Taylor of Caroline, Virginia born, delivers his vision of agriculture being the source of happiness of Americans through Arator. Contrarily, Alexander Hamilton provided an opposing point of view, in Report on the Subject of Manufactures, stating that America should march towards an industrialized society. Despite the fact that these three lived during the same time period, 1700s- 1800s, the political visions that grounded Crevecoeur’s and Taylor’s agrarian ideals differed drastically from Hamilton’s.

As described Amercia was based on equality, where every man was able to reach the American Dream with hard work, however this was not reality. Social hierarchy defined through property revealed a historic paradox of liberalism. Freedom was “measured in comparative hierarchical terms. The American hierarchy of individuals was constructed in terms of the relation between personal freedom and property through a calibration of personal dependency.” (Osborne, p.552) Examples of social hierarchy within the new utopia included, the rank of “German and Scotch immigrants generally fare better than those from Ireland.” (Philbrick, p.62) Even as Americans fought to distance themselves from English ways causing a Revolution, America was never truly free from English traditions. The idea of a new man, an American had to “fit the definition provided by English political tradition as modified by Crèvecoeur’s notion of individual rights.” (Shuffelton, p.246) Mixture amongst immigrants was acceptable as long as certain criteria and combinations were met and set the model for suitable cultural