Transcript Letters from an American Farmer Written by Michel St. John

Letters from an American Farmer
Written by Michel St. John De Crevecoeur
Presented by: Heather Justice
Biography
 Born Michel Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur
 In 1735 around Caen, France
 Came to North America by way of England in 1755
 Served with Montcalm’s forces during the assault on
For William Henry
 Settled in upstate New York in 1759
 Became a British subject in 1764
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

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.”
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.”
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”
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.”
Sources
 Bibliobase from Houghton Mifflin Company
 http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761569
179/Crevecoeur.html