J. Hector Saint John de Crèvevoeur

Major Works

• Letters From an American Farmer (1782)

• Lettres d’un cultivateur Américain,

2 vol. (Paris, 1784)

• Lettres, 3 vol. (1790)

• Voyage dans la haute Pennsylvanie et dans l’État de New York

Biography cont.

- After finishing military career, spent ten years in America surveying and trading with Native Americans

- Unknown whether he enjoying living on his farm in America, but eventually returned to France

- Claimed that he was imprisoned as a rebel spy

- (On a return to America for consulship) found his house burned down, wife dead, and children living elsewhere

- Primarily successful as a diplomat

Biography

- French American author

- 1735-1813

- Born Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur in Caen, Normandy

- Moved to England at 19

- Lived in Canada in 1755 after the death of his fiancée

- Enlisted in the military (surveyor and cartographer)

- Wounded in the defense of Quebec

J. Hector Saint John de Crèvecoeur

Ari Aganbi and Ann Tarry

From "Letter IX. Thoughts on Slavery"

"While all is joy, festivity, and happiness in Charles-Town, would you imagine that scenes of misery overspread in the country? Their ears by habit are become deaf, their hearts hardened; they neither see, hear nor feel the woes of their poor slaves" (Baym 320)

"The daughter torn from her weeping mother, the child from the wretched parents, the wife from the loving husband; whose families swept away and brought (Baym 320)

• Points out the reality behind American society
• Shows an understanding of the harshness of the slave trade
• Is historically significant because it addresses slavery in America

Literary Significance

• Wrote from a fictional persona
• Quoted constantly by literature and society today
• Especially topic of the melting pot

Historical Significance

• Describes melting pot theory
• Provides a more realistic look into American life from an outsider
• Hits topics like city life, the nature of the land, slavery, American people, and more

Letters from an American Farmer

From "Letter III. What Is an American?"

"The meanest of our log-houses is a dry and comfortable habitation. Lawyer or merchant are the fairest titles our towns afford; that of a farmer is the only appellation of the rural inhabitants of our country." (Baym

• Describes America as very rural with limited roles in society
• Provides a simple life
• Show the more realistic side of American life
• not as glamorous as excepted

Works Cited

"Hector St. John de Crevecoeur." American History

From Revolution to Reconstruction, www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/literature-1991/authors/hector-st-john-de-crevecoeur.php.

Michel-Guillaume-Saint-Jean de Crèvecoeur. Britannica,

www.britannica.com/biography/Michel-Guillaume-Saint-Jean-de-Crevecoeur. Accessed 10 Oct. 2016.

De' Crèvecoeur, J. Hector St. John. "Letters from an American Farmer." 1782. Beginnings to 1865,

edited by Nina Baym, 8th ed., W. W. Norton & Company, 2013, pp. 309-23. 2 vols.

Excerpt #3

• From perspective of fictional character Farmer James
• 12 letters
• Discusses various aspects of American life

"What then is the American, this new man? He is either a European, or the descendant of a European, hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations....Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause changes in the world." (http://www.let.rug.nl/)

• more positive outlook on the people in America
• giving hope for the future
• significant because of its descriptions of the American people

Themes

• Expectations of America compared to reality
• American land as a broken utopia
• Awareness of the many faults of the actual colonies