Interdisciplinary Studies in Letters & Science

Chabot College - Fall 2005

J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur's

Letters From An American Farmer

Reading Assignment

M 10/10 Letters, pp. 66-105 – "What Is an American?" (Don)

T 10/11 Letters, pp. 166-179 –"Description of Charles Town; Thoughts on Slavery…" (Susan)

W 10/12 Letters, pp. 250-263 – "Reflections on the Manners  of Americans" (Julie)

Th 10/13 Letters, pp. 200-207 - "Distresses of a Frontier Man" and,

 pp. 402 – 406 – "The Frontier Woman" (Scott)

Online Resources

 Distresses of a Frontier Man

http://www.eduplace.com/ss/maps/pdf/colonies.pdf

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states/early_indian_east.jpg

http://www.history1700s.com/articles/article1131.shtml

http://www.americanrevwar.homestead.com/files/LIFESTYL.HTM

http://www.rootsweb.com/~srgp/craft/landcont.htm

Background:

- Alliances between British & Native Tribes against Colonies

- Terror of Captain Bryant et. al. in terrorizing settlers

- Attempts by colonists to keep indians out, or draw them into the fight on the side of the colonies.

Themes:

- Innocent man and family caught between sides in a war.

- Can you really flee society to an apparently simpler, native life?

Questions:

- Why did deCrevecoeur write this particular story for his European readers?

- Does it match their stereotypical expectations of "native" life?

- Would the perils "shock" the readers - is it exciting stuff?

- What do you make of the narrator (James) in this piece? Is he in control?

Page Thoughts

200 Why does he bring references to Finland/Lapland/Siberia?

He has gone from totally happy to totally sad, and uses the idea that northern

cities go from complete light to complete dark. Reflection of his mood.
201  "Men mutually support and add to the boldness and confidence of each other; the weakness of each is strengthened by the force of the whole. I had never before these calamitous times formed any such ideas; I lived on, laboured and prospered, without having ever studied on what the security of my life and the foundation of my prosperity were established."

How does the onset of the war cause James the farmer to change his views? What does deCrevecoeur try to say about the American independent spirit?
201  "From the mountains we havce but too much reason to expect our dreadful enemy..."

cf. The attacks by natives allied with the British. see Washburn.: http://www.americanrevolution.org/ind1.html
202-203 The terror of attacks at night
203  "Read this, I pray, with the eyes of sympathy, with a tender sorrow..."

This is fiction, but based in some fact. While deCrevecoeur was not forced to flee like James, he did have a farm and was jailed for suspicions of alliance with the french and colonists against the crown.

 
203  "I am told that the great nation of which we are a part is just, wise, and free..."

"As a citizen of a smaller society, I find that any kind of opposition to its now prevailing sentiments immediately begets hatred'; how easily do men pass from loving to hating and cursing one another!

 
204  "As to the argument on which the dispute is founded, I know little about it."

==> Do we think today that everyone in the colonies was a commmitted patriot? OR perhaps a secret fancier of English and England? Were there neutrals?

 
204  "Shall I discard all my ancient principles, shall I renounce that name, that nation which I held once so respectable?"

Torn between allegiance to the crown (historical ties) and to the land, family, neighbors, and society he has become a part of...
205 "What one party calls meritorious, the other denominates flagitious.
205 "[H]e who governs himself according to what he calls his principles may be punished either by one party or the other for those very principles."
206  "But let him come and reside with us one single month...
207  "If a poor frontier inhabitant..."

==> natural worries of family trumps politics, even for the king.
207 "Must I then, in order to be called a faithful subject, coolly and ..."
209  "No; my former respect, my former attachment, vanishes with my safety..."

==> the failure of allegiance to the crown because of the dire circumstances
209 "Alas, she herself, that once indulgent parent, forces me to take up arms against her."
210  "Self-preservation is above all political precepts and rules..."
214  "It cannot be, therefore, so bad as we generally conceive it to be; there must be in their social bond something singularly captivating and far superior to anything to be boasted of among us..."

==> logic that since many europeans became "indian" but no indians became "european", it must be better.

 
215  "They most certainly are much more closely connected with Nature than we are..."
217  "They know nothing of the nature of our disputes; they have no ideas of such revolutions as this..."

Is this an accurate assumption?

 

 

SH - 10/05

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