Hector St. Jean de Crvecur

1
Hector St. Jean de Crèvecur

• (1735-1813)

2
de Crèvecur

• Was born in 1735 in Caen, Normandy, France
• He was educated at a Jesuit school in Normandy,
  where he learned English.
• Some time after he left school, he was sent to
  England, where he became engaged to an English
  woman.
• The untimely death of his fiancée is believed to
  be the reason he left England to begin a new life
  in Canada.
• He first saw the New World at the age of 19 when
  he sailed to Canada to serve in the French and
  Indian War as a soldier and a map maker.

3
de Crèvecur

• He joined the Canadian militia and in 1758 was a
  candidate for second lieutenant in the French
  army.
• After being wounded and hospitalized while
  defending Quebec, he was forced to leave the
  military.
• traveled as a surveyor in upstate New York and
  Vermont, under the name "James Hector St. John".
  
• He became a citizen of New York in 1765.

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de Crèvecur

• Married an American woman and settled on a
  120-acre farm which he named Pine Hill.
• His first writings were done before 1774, and are
  mainly accounts of his various travels.
• From 1774 to 1776 he wrote about Americans and
  their lives
• From 1777 to 1778 his work describes the
  Revolutionary War's effect upon America

5
de Crèvecur

• In his work, Letters from an American Farmer, he
  explains, "The American is a new man, who acts
  upon new principles he must therefore entertain
  new ideas and form new opinions."
• exactly what he tried to do
• he completely embraced America and the way of
  life there
• he severed all his connections with France.

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de Crèvecur

• The Revolution turned the region around the farm
  into a battle zone.
• Forced to leave his farm by the Revolutionaries.
• Imprisoned by British for a month as a suspected
  spy.
• Disgusted with the war, he left his wife, 2 sons
  and daughter in America and sailed to London in
  1780.

7
de Crèvecur

• Letters from an American Farmer was published in
  1782.
• Went back to France.
• Success of Letters placed him in the esteemed
  literary circles where he became associated with
  a group of progressive thinking French
  intellectuals.
• Also led to his being appointed a representative
  of France to New York, New Jersey, Connecticut.

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de Crèvecur

• He returned to America in 1783, but the war had
  taken its toll.
• He returned to find his wife dead, his farm
  burned, and his children resettled in Boston.
• In America, he did continue his scientific
  studies and worked closely with Thomas Jefferson
  in efforts to unite French and American
  interests.
• He was made a member of the American
  Philosophical Society in 1789.

9
de Crèvecur

• Retired to Normandy in 1790, where he had been
  born after being unable to return to America.
• Poor and unknown, he lived there with his father
  for the last 23 years of his life.
• Died on Nov. 12, 1813.

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Letters from an American Farmer

• The 12 Letters from an American Farmer are held
  together by the movement of the fictional Quaker
  narrator of the text, James, the American farmer,
  from happiness to despair as he records his life
  as a farmer and his travels to Martha's Vineyard,
  Nantucket, and Charlestown.

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Letters from an American Farmer

• In the opening letters, James celebrates America
  as a place where the oppressed masses of Europe
  are able to pursue their own self-interest as
  independent landowners, free from the shackles of
  feudal society, monarchy, and the church.
• In the later letters, he deals with problems
  already causing divisions within the new society
  - slavery and the Revolution.

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Letters from an American Farmer

• Letter I
• Introduction - establishes the circumstances of
  James, the American Farmer's correspondence with
  Mr. F. B. and suggests the point of view of the
  succeeding letters
• Letter II
• Consists of an informal and impressionistic
  report "On the Situation , Feelings, and
  Pleasures of an American Farmer" as the narrator
  has experienced them on his farm in central
  Pennsylvania.

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Letters from an American Farmer

• Letter III
• "What is an American?" attempts to answer the
  query of its title by taking a sweeping survey of
  the impact of America on the European immigrant,
  a survey which sketches the diversity of American
  life but which concentrates on the rural culture
  of the middle colonies.
• Letters IV-VIII
• Describe in detail the manners and customs of the
  whaling villages of Nantucket and Martha's
  Vineyard.
• Letter IX
• Gives a brief account of Charleston, South
  Carolina.

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Letters from an American Farmer

• Letters X-XI
• Return the reader to the middle colonies, first
  for some sketches of the birds and snakes on the
  narrator's farm and then for the report of a
  Russian gentleman on his visit to John Bartram,
  the celebrated Pennsylvania naturalist.
• Letter XII
• The farmer pictures, in highly emotional colors,
  the disruption of his life by the outbreak of the
  Revolution and expresses his intention of fleeing
  with his family to an Indian village in the
  remote wilderness.

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Letters from an American Farmer

• Is the first American text to ask and answer the
  question, "What is an American?"
• Although he was describing life in the British
  colonies of America, he used his character to
  comment on the principles of social organization
  that were making American society different from
  any that had gone before and to portray, for the
  first time, the new consciousness of emerging
  American society.
• His international experience provided him just
  the point of view necessary for determining the
  value of America as a country.

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Importance of the Letters

• Provides useful information and understanding of
  the New World.
• Tries to create an American identity - it is an
  attempt to describe an entire country, not merely
  regional colonies.
• Celebrates American innocence and simplicity.
• Describes American tolerance for religious
  diversity.
• Asks the important question - what is an
  American?
• Is the first writer to explore the concept of the
  American Dream.

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Limitations of the Letters

• Specific details in matters of geography,
  religion, history, and politics are missing.
• American agriculture is treated generally
  (absence of details).
• He glosses over the issue of slavery.