Letters%20from%20an%20American%20Farmer%20Written%20by%20Michel%20St.%20John%20De%20Crevecoeur

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Letters from an American FarmerWritten by Michel
St. John De Crevecoeur

• Presented by Heather Justice

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Biography

• Born Michel Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur
• In 1735 around Caen, France
• Came to North America by way of England in 1755
• Served with Montcalms forces during the assault
  on For William Henry
• Settled in upstate New York in 1759
• Became a British subject in 1764

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Biography continued

• 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 been 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 1813

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Historical Context

• Crevecoeur was an American Farmer
• we are a people of cultivators
• The events leading to the Revolution were of
  major significance at the time
• Crevecoeur was targeting the poor 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.

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Main Points

• The metamorphosis of an European into an American
• Crevecoeur likens poor Europeans to useless
  plants that are transplanted and have take root
  and flourished in America
• The freedom and opportunities in North America
  (social, religious, etc.)
• The chance to be a freeman and there are no
  princes, for whom we toil, starve, and bleed we
  are the most perfect society now existing In the
  world. Here man is free as he ought to be
• To describe and define what it meant to be an
  American
• The American is a new man, who acts upon new
  principles he must therefore entertain new
  ideas, and form new opinions.

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Historical Significance

• 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 will succeed and
  encourage him to work hard in America to be a
  success
• Refers to individuals of all nations are melted
  into a new race of men and that strange mixture
  of blood, which you will find in no other country

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Questions

• Do you agree on the Main Points?
• What did this document say to you?
• Do you feel that the descriptions of the
  transformation of an European into an American
  was romanticized or idealized?
• Crevecoeur said he no sooner breathes our air
  than he forms schemes, an embarks on designs he
  never would have thought of in his own country.

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Sources

• Bibliobase from Houghton Mifflin Company
• http//encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761569179/Crev
  ecoeur.html