Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Letters from an American Farmer, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Freedom and Government
Farming, Land, and Love of Nature
Emigration, Hard Work, and Success
Religion in America
Colonization, Atrocity, and Apathy
Summary
Analysis
No European traveler can help being delighted by the happiness he sees in the American colonies. “The wisdom of Lycurgus and Solon” couldn’t give a Pennsylvanian so much prosperity, and William Penn should be honored above many of England’s kings. To prove that he isn’t exaggerating, the author of this letter, a Russian gentleman named Iwan, recounts a visit to botanist John Bertram.
In this letter, Crèvecoeur returns to his earlier theme of American uniqueness and happiness. Lycurgus and Solon were ancient Greek reformers and lawgivers, so by saying that settler William Penn bestows greater benefits on society than they did, the author implies that America’s freedoms are a huge advance for the world as a whole. This letter is a departure in that Crèvecoeur writes in the voice of a European visitor to America, Iwan, instead of in James’s.
Themes
Mr. Bertram lives in a modest house with a tower in the middle. Iwan finds the botanist working in one of his meadows. During a simple dinner without ceremony, Bertram asks his guest what he, a Russian, is doing in America. The Russian replies that he regards America as “the seed of future nations,” and, like Russia, it is making many new discoveries. Perhaps the two countries have other things in common.
John Bertram, or Bartram (1699–1777), was a real historical figure, an American-born Quaker who established the country’s first botanical garden near Philadelphia. In the 1770s, Russia was ruled by “enlightened despot” Catherine the Great, as the Russian empire experienced territorial expansion as well as advancements in the arts and sciences. It’s interesting that Crèvecoeur writes this letter from the perspective of a fictional Russian, suggesting that he thought Russia might have been on a similar path to America at the time.
Themes
Iwan questions Mr. Bertram about the work he is doing. Bertram explains that the Schuylkill River created a lot of uselessly swampy land, but now he and some other landowners share the expense of improving thousands of acres into meadows. The resulting land is so rich that within a few years, it pays for itself.
As portrayed here, Bertram is a model American farmer, in that like James, he enjoys a close relationship with his land and constantly looks for ways to improve it rather than exploit it.
Themes
After dinner, Iwan hears distant music and goes upstairs to find wind blowing through the strings of an Eolian harp, which he’s never seen before. Retiring into Mr. Bertram’s study, Iwan is surprised to see a coat of arms in a gilt frame. Bertram explains that it’s a memento of his French father and not the sort of display that Quakers typically favor. The pair then passes the hours until sunset admiring Bertram’s botanical collection. Iwan enjoys himself so much that he asks to stay, and Bertram warmly welcomes him to do so. He takes Iwan on a tour of his drained meadows, his fields, flocks, and orchards. Iwan is impressed by Bertram’s methods of irrigating and fertilizing his once-barren lands.
An Aeolian harp is basically a wind chime. The various mementos and curiosities in Bertram’s study give an impression of an inquisitive man who respects his past, yet is deeply rooted in his present surroundings—a very American character, in other words. Iwan’s reaction to Bertram’s lovingly developed lands deepens that impression. By portraying the historical Bartram as a character in his book, Crèvecoeur shows that such farmers weren’t just figments of his imagination like James, but people who really existed and played a notable role in America’s growth.
Themes
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When Bertram asks about husbandry in Russia, Iwan explains that few Russian farmers own their land, so they cannot undertake such extensive schemes as Bertram does here in Pennsylvania. In America, by contrast, farmers hold their lands from the “Master of Nature.” Iwan predicts that, thanks to its freedoms, America will prosper far beyond Europe within a few years. Bertram agrees with him but warns against presumption, since all societies seem susceptible to tyranny. Iwan replies that it’s “poverty […] that makes slaves.”
This passage makes the same strong connection that James made in his letters earlier, between land ownership and good stewardship of one’s land. Most of the people who work the land in Russia, Iwan explains, lack the freedom or personal stake in the land to deeply invest in its development. It's also interesting that Iwan regards poverty as something that enslaves. Though he doesn’t elaborate here, presumably he believes that poverty limits people’s ability to determine their future.
Themes
Mr. Bertram encourages Iwan to read a letter he received from Queen Ulrica of Sweden. Iwan is not surprised that a Swedish queen, who “walk[s] in the gardens of Linnaeus,” would write to America’s prime botanist. He asks Bertram how he became a botanist, and Bertram explains that he received little education growing up, only the inheritance of his father’s farm.
Carolus Linnaeus was an 18th-century Swedish naturalist who came up with systems for classifying and naming plant species. By linking Bertram—with his farming background and minimal education—to a famous European botanist and monarch, Crèvecoeur suggests that humble American farmers could hold their own in bigger cultural and scientific conversations.
Themes
One day, while taking a rest from ploughing, Bertram sat under a tree and began examining a daisy, thinking it a shame that he had inadvertently destroyed so many beautiful plants over the years. He couldn’t stop thinking about it, so a few days later he visited a Philadelphia bookseller and came home with botany books and a Latin grammar. A neighboring schoolteacher tutored him in enough Latin to study Linnaeus. Bertram began to botanize around his farm, and within a few years, he had gained a general knowledge of America’s plants and trees. He enjoys more leisure nowadays and thus spends more time on botany, sending specimens to Europe upon request.
Bertram’s account of how he became a self-made, first-class botanist is striking because it is so rooted in Bertram’s upbringing as an American farmer. Self-taught, he became America’s premier botanist while hardly leaving the farm on which he’d been raised—suggesting that, though Americans can and should learn from European expertise, they do not have to become any less American in order to make a mark on the wider world. In this way, Bertram is like Crèvecoeur’s James.
Themes
Iwan spends several happy days on Bertram’s farm and is struck by the ease and mildness in all the relationships in the household, even between Bertram and his enslaved people. He questions Bertram about this, and Bertram explains that the influence of Quaker writings has encouraged him to set aside prejudice and look upon Black people differently. He now pays them and provides them with room, board, and education. As long as they behave as “moral men,” he allows them to eat at his table.
The book is somewhat unclear about the status of the Black members of Bertram’s household. Iwan refers to them as if they’re enslaved, though it seems that Bertram has actually freed them from bondage and now technically employs them. Yet there is still a racist undertone in Bertram’s implication that as long as they adhere to the white household members’ standards of behavior, they will be treated as full members of the family—it implies that if they don’t meet those standards, Bertram might regard them as inferior or even subhuman.
Themes
Bertram criticizes other Christians who rule their enslaved people through fear, without teaching them any religious principles. Slavery is anti-Christian, he argues, and after granting his enslaved people freedom, they chose to remain attached to his family. Iwan is impressed and wishes that other Christian denominations would follow Bertram’s example. He claims he can’t bear to visit the southern colonies because people treat their enslaved laborers so cruelly there. He also explains that Russia doesn’t have slaves, exactly, but they do have serfs who are attached to the land on which they live, a barbarous custom.
Though Bertram holds troubling attitudes about Black people themselves, not seeming to regard them as inherently equal to white people, his unambiguous denunciation of the institution of slavery was markedly progressive for the time. Iwan echoes James in claiming to find the American South much more racist than the North. Russian serfs could not be sold individually like enslaved people, but they could be sold along with the land to which they were “attached” and treated as the landowner chose—sometimes savagely. Russian serfdom wasn’t abolished until 1861.
Themes
Iwan’s happy visit with Bertram is punctuated by the Sunday service at the Quaker meeting in Chester, Pennsylvania. The meeting-house is square, plain, and furnished only with benches and a warm stove. Everyone sits silently for half an hour with heads bowed. After that, a woman stands up and says that the spirit has moved her to speak. She gives a moral discourse for about 45 minutes, and Iwan is impressed by her good sense and lack of ostentation. Not long after, the congregation departs. Iwan is deeply impressed by the simplicity of the Friends’ doctrine and peaceful manner of life and death.
Worship services of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, lack ordained clergy or formal structure, instead focusing on silent meditation. Any member is welcome to exhort the rest of the congregation when they believe the Holy Spirit has moved them to do so. Since Crèvecoeur was a deist—rejecting most aspects of traditional religion—it’s not too surprising that, through Iwan’s character, he praises an expression of Christianity that lacks official dogma and clerical authority.
Themes
After that, Iwan is hosted by various local farmers and enjoys the hospitality so much that he ultimately spends two months there. If it weren’t for James’s encouragement, he would never have made such delightful acquaintances in Pennsylvania.
The connection between James’s and Iwan’s characters isn’t made clear, but this letter’s takeaway might simply be that James wants his European friend F.B. to see that Iwan, a fellow European, finds much to admire about America, both philosophically and in lifestyle.
Themes
