Features of the Text
John Hector St. John. de Crèvecoeur’s work is considered one of the first to construct an American identity. Fifty years after the publication, another Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, would publish the gigantic treatise American Democracy (which you’ll read an excerpt from). These texts are cultural analyses. Although de Crèvecoeur’s work is “fictional,” he’s certainly inspired by American life; he recreates his impressions in the Letter. Below are some areas to focus on:
NOTE: the page numbers come from the PDF on Canvas.
Let’s not bury the lead, though:
…the back-settlers of both the Carolinas, Virginia, and many other parts, have been long a set of lawless people; it has been even dangerous to travel among them. Government can do nothing in so extensive a country, better it should wink at these irregularities, than that it should use means inconsistent with its usual mildness. (p. 13)
The Melting Pot
- p. 1: “Here [the Englishman] sees the industry of his native country displayed in a new manner, and traces in their works the embrios of all the arts, sciences, and ingenuity which flourish in Europe.”
- p. 1: “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.”
- p. 2: “whence came all these people? they are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race now called Americans have arisen.”
- p. 3: “In this great American asylum, the poor of Europe have by some means met together…”
- He goes on to discuss poverty and dispossession of the Old World.
- “…here they came. Every thing 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 vegitative 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!”
- p. 4: “Ubi panis ibi patria“ means where there is bread there is country
- p. 4: “Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.”
- p. 8: “The inhabitants of Canada, Massachuset, the middle provinces, the southern ones will be as different as their climates; their only points of unity will be those of religion and language.”
- p. 10: “Thus all sects are mixed as well as all nations; thus religious indifference is imperceptibly disseminated from one end of the continent to the other; which is at present one of the strongest characteristics of the Americans.”
Engaging with Democracy
- p. 6: “As citizens it is easy to imagine, that they will carefully read the newspapers, enter into every political disquisition, freely blame or censure governors and others.”
- p. 14: “this fair country alone is settled by freeholders, the possessors of the soil they cultivate, members of the government they obey, and the framers of their own Jaws, by means of their representatives.”
- p. 17: “he forms schemes of future prosperity, he proposes to educate his children better than he has been educated himself.”
A Land of Equals, not Royalty
- p. 2: “If he travels through our rural districts he views not the hostile castle, and the haughty mansion, contrasted with” shanty towns, dilapidated dwellings.
- p. 2: “We have no princes, for whom we toil, starve, and bleed: we are the most perfect society now existing in the world.”
- Although we know people did toil for others, he’s pointing to the fact Americans have property rights.
- p. 14: “It is here then that the idle may be employed, the useless become useful, and the poor become rich; but by riches I do not mean gold and silver, we have but little of those metals; I mean a better sort of wealth, cleared lands, cattle, good houses, good cloaths, and an increase of people to enjoy them.”
- Hadn’t yet discovered gold in California or on the Reed Family Farm.
- p. 15: “I do not mean that every one who comes will grow rich in a little time; no, but he may procure an easy, decent maintenance, by his industry. Instead of starving he will be fed, instead of being idle he will have employment; and these are riches enough for such men as come over here.”
- Not a get-rich quick scheme
- Well, he does have stereotypes…
- p. 19: “The Scotch and the Irish might have lived in their own country perhaps as poor…”
- p. 19: “The Irish do not prosper so well; they love to drink and to quarrel; they are litigious, and soon take to the gun, which is the ruin of every thing…”
- “….their potatoes, which are easily raised, are perhaps an inducement to laziness: their wages are too low and their whisky too cheap.”
- What’s he saying about honest work?
- p. 20: “The Scotch on the contrary are all industrious and saving…”
Industriousness (hard work) and Ingenuity
- p. 3: “There never was a people, situated as they are, who with so ungrateful a soil have done more in so short a time.”
- p. 4: “Americans are the western pilgrims, who are carrying along with them that great mass of arts, sciences, vigour, and industry which began long since in the east; they will finish the great circle.”
- p. 5: “The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions. 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.”
- This is the land of plenty.
- Farmland of Pennsylvannia circa 1750
- Chester, NY, farm you can buy!
- Plenty of jobs and respect
- p. 16: “…they no sooner arrive than they immediately feel the good effects of that plenty of provisions we possess: they fare on our best food, and they are kindly entertained; their talents, character, and peculiar industry are immediately inquired into…”
- p. 16: “…he now feels himself a man, because he is treated as such; the laws of his own country had overlooked him in his insignificancy…”
Entrepreneurial Spirit
- pp. 1-2: “We are all animated with the spirit of an industry which is unfettered and unrestrained, because each person works for himself.”
- p. 17: “He looks around, and sees many a prosperous person, who but a few years before was as poor as himself. This encourages him much…”
Patriotism
- p. 4: “The American ought therefore to love this country much better than that wherein either he or his forefathers were born.”
- p. 17: “…he becomes an American. This great metamorphosis has a double effect, it extinguishes all his European prejudices, he forgets that mechanism of subordination, that servility of disposition which poverty had taught him…”
Religious Observation
- p. 5: “Here religion demands but little of him; a small voluntary salary to the minister, and gratitude to God; can he refuse these?”
- Those who live away fro
- p. 6: “Those who inhabit the middle settlements, by far the most numerous….Europe has no such class of men…”
- p. 6: “As Christians, religion curbs them not in their opinions; the general indulgence leaves every one to think for themselves in spiritual matters; the laws inspect our actions, our thoughts are left to God.”
- What is he getting at here?
- p. 6: “If you recede still farther from the sea….Religion seems to have still less influence, and their manners are less improved.”
- p. 6: “Industry, good living, selfishness, litigiousness, country politics, the pride of freemen, religious indifference, are their characteristics.”
- p. 9: “He is sober and laborious, therefore he is all he ought to be as to the affairs of this life; as for those of the next, he must trust to the great Creator.”
Connections to the Soil
- p. 5: “Men are like plants; the goodness and flavour of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow.”
- p. 12: “If manners are not refined, at least they are rendered simple and inoffensive by tilling the earth; all our wants are supplied by it, our time is divided between labour and rest, and leaves none for the commission of great misdeeds.”
The Off-Casts and Back-Settlers
- p. 7: “There, remote from the power of example, and check of shame, many families exhibit the most hideous parts of our society.”
- p. 7: “In all societies there are off-casts; this impure part serves as our precursors or pioneers, my father himself was one of that class, but he came upon honest principles, and was therefore one of the few who held fast; by good conduct and temperance, he transmitted to me his fair inheritance…”
- de Crèvecoeur was from a wealthy family, so I assume his father gave him an inheritance, but I don’t think he was from the “off-cast.”
- We can interpret this as the fictional narrator, James, conveying that regardless of your parents, you can make it in America.
Hunters in the wilderness
- p. 11: “These new manners being grafted on the old stock, produce a strange sort of lawless profligacy, the impressions of which are indelible. The manners of the Indian natives are respectable, compared with this European medley. Their wives and children live in sloth and inactivity; and having no proper pursuits, you may judge what education the latter receive.”
- p. 11: “The chase renders them ferocious, gloomy, and unsociable; a hunter wants no neighbour, he rather hates them, because he dreads the competition.”
- p. 11: “By living in or near the woods, their actions are regulated by the wildness of the neighbourhood….This surrounding hostility, immediately puts the gun into their hands…”
- p. 12: “…shall we yet vainly flatter ourselves with the hope of converting the Indians? We should rather begin with converting our back-settlers; and now if I dare mention the name of religion, its sweet accents would be lost in the immensity of these woods.”
- In another 100 years, the late Victorian Era will have the worry of devolution
Manifest Destiny’s European Inspiration
- p. 7: “Such is our progress, such is the march of the Europeans toward the interior parts of this continent.”
- p. 20: “This great continent must in time absorb the poorest part of Europe; and this will happen in proportion as it becomes better known; and as war, taxation, oppression, and misery increase there.”
This letter we’re focusing on ends with the following:
…for if he is but sober, honest, and industrious, he has nothing more to ask of heaven. Let him go to work, he will have opportunities enough to earn a comfortable support, and even the means of procuring some land; which ought to be the utmost wish of every person who has health and hands to work. (p. 23)
Conclusion
I won’t end class until 12:45pm, so offer some concluding reflections on de Crèvecoeur’s letter.