John crevecoeur. What Is An American By John Crevecoeur Essay 2022-10-27
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Jean de Crèvecoeur, also known as J. Hector St. John, was a French-American writer and farmer who is best known for his letters describing life in early America. He was born in 1735 in Caen, France, and immigrated to the British colonies in America in 1755.
Crèvecoeur's most famous work is his book "Letters from an American Farmer," which was published in 1782. This book consists of a series of letters written by a fictional farmer named James, who describes life in the American colonies and the experiences of immigrants who came to America in search of a better life. Crèvecoeur's letters paint a vivid picture of the natural beauty of the American landscape and the diverse cultures and ways of life of the people who lived there.
In his letters, Crèvecoeur explores the concept of the "American Dream," the idea that anyone can achieve success and happiness through hard work and determination. He describes the opportunities available in America for people of all backgrounds and how the country's democratic values and freedom allowed people to pursue their dreams and aspirations.
Crèvecoeur also wrote about the conflicts and challenges faced by the early settlers in America, including conflicts with Native Americans and the difficulties of carving out a new life in a harsh and unfamiliar land. Despite these challenges, he saw great potential in the American colonies and believed that they had the potential to become a great nation.
Crèvecoeur's writing had a significant impact on the way that Europeans and Americans viewed the American colonies and the concept of the American Dream. His letters were widely read and had a profound influence on the way that people thought about the American colonies and the opportunities they offered.
In conclusion, Jean de Crèvecoeur was a talented writer and farmer who made a lasting contribution to our understanding of life in early America. His letters from an American Farmer provide a valuable glimpse into the experiences of immigrants and the development of the American Dream in the early colonies.
Michel
He left the army but stayed in the New World, where after a good deal of traveling, working as a surveyor, and note-taking, he became a farmer, first in Ulster County, then in Orange County, N. As hunters it is divided between the toil of the chase, the idleness of repose, or the indulgence of inebriation. But is it really true, as I have heard it asserted here, that those blacks are incapable of feeling the spurs of emulation, and the cheerful sound of encouragement? John, a French-American writer, who published in London, 1782, a volume of narrative essays entitled, Letters from an American Farmer. What a train of pleasing ideas this fair spectacle must suggest; it is a prospect which must inspire a good citizen with the most heartfelt pleasure. This is the great operation daily performed by our laws. After a Jesuit education and a visit in England, where he learned English, he served as a map maker with Louis Montcalm's army in Canada from about 1755 to 1759.
I do not mean to insinuate national reflections, God forbid! We are nothing but what we derive from the air we breathe, the climate we inhabit, the government we obey, the system of religion we profess, and the nature of our employment. Hunting is but a licentious idle life, and if it does not always pervert good dispositions; yet, when it is united with bad luck, it leads to want: want stimulates that propensity to rapacity and injustice, too natural to needy men, which is the fatal gradation. Whatever be his talents or inclinations, if they are moderate, he may satisfy them. Bad enough, said he; we have no such trees as I see here, no wheat, no kine, no apples. This reward, simple and natural as one would conceive it, would border on humanity; and planters must have none of it! On the verge of America's independence, Crèvecoeur was the first author to provide an answer to the European question of the day: "What then is this American, this new man? The knowledge of the language, the love of a few kindred as poor as himself, were the only cords that tied him: his country is now that which gives him land, bread, protection, and consequence: Ubi panis ibi patria, is the motto of all emigrants. Here religion demands but little of him; a small voluntary salary to the minister, and gratitude to God; can he refuse these? They sought a place to express their religion freely and independent from the restrictions in England. He therefore, like a faithful guardian, precipitately withdrew and shut the doors, but as most of our houses are without locks, he was reduced to the necessity of fixing his knife over the latch, and then flew upstairs in quest of a broadsword he had brought from Scotland.
For some time he was very awkward, but he was so docile, so willing, and grateful, as well as his wife, that I foresaw he would succeed. Then the Americans become as to religion, what they are as to country, allied to all. The corrected proofs of Voyage dans la Haute Pennsylvanie et dans l'Ètat de New-York were purchased from the William Reese Company on the Edwin J. How do we define our culture and national identity? 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. Pride steps in and leads him to everything that the laws do not forbid: he respects them; with a heart-felt gratitude he looks toward the east, toward that insular government from whose wisdom all his new felicity is derived, and under whose wings and protection he now lives. For some time he was very awkward, but he was so docile, so willing, and grateful, as well as his wife, that I foresaw he would succeed.
What Is An American?" By Hector St. John Crevecoeur
The American ought therefore to love this country much better than that wherein either he or his forefathers were born. 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; and sometimes he is apt to forget too much, often passing from one extreme to the other. Here an European, fatigued with luxury, riches, and pleasures, may find a sweet relaxation in a series of interesting scenes, as affecting as they are new. These ideas led to the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 which authorized encroachment of Indian lands by the US government in order to divide up reservations and control Indian activity. Now contrast this frigid power of the north and south with that of the sun; examine the parched lands of the torrid zone, replete with sulphureous exhalations; view those countries of Asia subject to pestilential infections which lay nature waste; view this globe often convulsed both from within and without; pouring forth from several mouths, rivers of boiling matter, which are imperceptibly leaving immense subterranean graves, wherein millions will one day perish! James, my wife hath done nothing more to thy bed than what is done all the year round to all the beds in the family; she sprinkles her linen with rose-water before she puts it under the press; it is her fancy, and I have nought to say. They were among the first essays to suggest that coming to North America to seek a fortune under the freedom of a new democracy made residents of the United States somehow different than people still living in Europe.
Who then can blame the inhabitants of these countries for transporting themselves hither? Poor man, it took him a long time ere he could sit on the saddle and hold the bridle properly. Soon after, further settlements were made on that road, and Andrew, instead of being the last man towards the wilderness, found himself in a few years in the middle of a numerous society. These men are more properly law givers than interpreters of the law; and have united here, as well as in most other provinces, the skill and dexterity of the scribe with the power and ambition of the prince: who can tell where this may lead in a future day? I shudder when I recollect that the birds had already picked out his eyes, his cheek bones were bare; his arms had been attacked in several places, and his body seemed covered with a multitude of wounds. In other cases, their last name—O'Reilly, Schmidt, Ferraro, or Li, for example—suggests that a long-forgotten ancestor emigrated from Ireland, Germany, Italy, or China to the United States. These reflections constitute him the good man and the good subject. In June 1785 he returned to France, seeking to improve commercial relations between France and America. The most noticeable part of the frontier myth is the mythic struggle between modern civilization and wilderness.
St. Jean De Crevecoeur: Letters from an American Farmer
It is not every emigrant who succeeds; no, it is only the sober, the honest, and industrious: happy those to whom this transition has served as a powerful spur to labour, to prosperity, and to the good establishment of children, born in the days of their poverty; and who had no other portion to expect but the rags of their parents, had it not been for their happy emigration. Their avarice, removed from the eyes of their superiors, knows no bounds; and aided by the little superiority of knowledge, these traders deceive them, and even sometimes shed blood. What love can he entertain for a country where his existence was a burthen to him; if he is a generous good man, the love of this new adoptive parent will sink deep into his heart. If they are peaceable subjects, and are industrious, what is it to their neighbours how and in what manner they think fit to address their prayers to the Supreme Being? We have no princes, for whom we toil, starve, and bleed: we are the most perfect society now existing in the world. He must greatly rejoice that he lived at a time to see this fair country discovered and settled; he must necessarily feel a share of national pride, when he views the chain of settlements which embellishes these extended shores. This encourages him much, he begins to form some little scheme, the first, alas, he ever formed in his life.
There is no tracing observations of this kind, without making at the same time very great allowances, as there are everywhere to be found, a great many exceptions. That is honest, we will explain these things to you by and by. A country that had no bread for him, whose fields procured him no harvest, who met with nothing but the frowns of the rich, the severity of the laws, with jails and punishments; who owned not a single foot of the extensive surface of this planet? On this little shell, how very few are the spots where man can live and flourish? Here he sees the industry of his native country displayed in a new manner, and traces in their works the embryos of all the arts, sciences, and ingenuity which nourish in Europe. Many a well meant sermon have I preached to some of them. It must take some time ere he can reconcile himself to our dictionary, which is but short in words of dignity, and names of honour. 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.
Here the rewards of his industry follow with equal steps the progress of his labour; his labour is founded on the basis of nature, self-interest; can it want a stronger allurement? He does not use large words or flowery language. His greatly enlarged and reorganized French version of Letters was published in Paris in 1784. Soon after, further settlements were made on that road, and Andrew, instead of being the last man towards the wilderness, found himself in a few years in the middle of a numerous society. John de Crèvecoeur was born and educated in Caen, Normandy. Others will remain in a perfect state of indifference; the children of these zealous parents will not be able to tell what their religious principles are, and their grandchildren still less. But notwithstanding this coarse idea, you will find his house and farm to be the neatest in all the country; and you will judge by his waggon and fat horses, that he thinks more of the affairs of this world than of those of the next.
