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
Men on Nantucket generally get married as early as they can; finances aren’t regarded as a big factor. Fathers don’t give dowries along with their daughters. A wife’s “fortune” is considered to be her thrift and her skill at running a household, much as a husband’s prospects in trade are his. After a few years of hard work, this is generally sufficient to support children. Children grow up hearing of adventures on the sea and gaining knowledge about it, even from short trips across to the mainland. People who grow up on the island have a distinctive agile gait their whole lives.
In this letter, James returns to Nantucket from Martha’s Vineyard, with a focus on the colonists’ social customs. With the lack of emphasis on things like marriage dowries, it appears that marriages on Nantucket have less to do with securing one’s class status than with living a respectable, productive life and maintaining a family. Also, people’s love of their natural environment comes across not just in their interests or vocational choices, but in their very posture.
Themes
Emigration comes naturally to seagoing people, and this is true of Nantucket’s people, too. Sometimes they emigrate “like bees, in regular and connected swarms.” In particular, the Quakers often travel to visit other Quaker congregations throughout America. Their travels also keep them well informed about conditions throughout the country, which helps them make purchasing decisions, like when a group of them bought a large piece of land in Orange, North Carolina. There wasn’t room for them to live on Nantucket any longer, but because of the seafaring skills they’d developed, they were in a good position to emigrate. This new settlement, called New Garden, is beautiful, with plentiful hills, streams, and rich Carolina soil.
Given James’s love of bees, it’s not surprising that he resorts to bees as a symbol for Nantucket Quakers’ tendency to emigrate in big, mutually-supporting groups. Though James has previously portrayed islanders as being rather isolated, Quakers seem to be a partial exception, with more cosmopolitan, enterprising ways. Though this section is a digression from James’s overall focus, it fits with his admiration for people who are willing to take the initiative to begin a new life for themselves.
Themes
Other groups of Friends, or Quakers, have settled on the Kennebec River in Sagadahock, Massachusetts, where they engage in various timber-related trades. As wonderful as New Garden is, James thinks the Kennebec settlement is better, because it demands hardy workers, whereas the Carolinas tend to produce a luxuriant, idle lifestyle. James will always value rougher country more than country that promotes “greater opulence and voluptuous ease.”
Sagadahock, Massachusetts, is in what’s now Maine. In this passage, James again highlights his belief that, rather than a person making what they can of their environment, the natural environment tends to influence a person’s character. Sunny southern weather apparently weakens character, whereas the rigors of the northern woods have the opposite effect.
Themes
The “fruitful hive” of Quakers thrives in any setting. Still, perhaps it seems strange that after doing well for himself, a rich Quaker wouldn’t prefer to seek an easier life on the mainland. But Nantucket feels like home, and people here do not want to give up their habits and customs, not to mention their friendships. Plus, they love simplicity and despise affluence.
James again employs his favorite metaphor, comparing the Quaker community to a humming beehive of activity. As much as some Quakers might enjoy trying their fortunes in other colonies, though, many are content to stick to the Nantucket community they know and love.
Themes
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It’s also true that plenty of Nantucket people die poor, or at least without having accumulated the riches their hard work seemed to have promised. James thinks this has to do with the expense of food, much of which must be procured from the mainland. Even hay for the horses must be gotten this way. Even a frugal family therefore spends a lot just to supply their basic needs.
James makes it clear that not everyone who works hard enjoys great material success as a result. Factors like supplying a household’s basic necessities can limit the amount of wealth even an industrious family can accumulate.
Themes
Nantucket only has two churches and one clergyman, a Presbyterian. The Quakers do not have ordained clergy, believing that any member may expound upon the Scriptures during their meetings and that outward sacraments are unnecessary. The two groups live harmoniously together and do not condemn each another’s beliefs. They are usually too busy with daily affairs to be too vehement about spiritual ones. James wishes he could send “the most persecuting bigot [he] could find” to the whale fishers; a few years there would make him a milder and better Christian.
James’s deist outlook comes through in this section. In previous letters, he has praised religious groups for keeping their beliefs to themselves and not being too enthusiastic about seeking converts. In his view, Nantucket Christians are especially admirable in this regard—their daily lives are too demanding for devout religion. James is sure that if a “bigoted” religious person spent time here, hard work would eventually moderate that person’s beliefs. Again, to someone who believes in human reason instead of religion, that’s just as it should be.
Themes
There are only two physicians on the island. While this might not seem like many, they simply aren’t needed—people generally do not drink or eat to excess, and they have strong constitutions due to regular exercise. So far the town has suffered no epidemics, and they often practice Indian healing methods for ordinary diseases. But thanks to the climate, pure air, and overall virtue and moderation of the people, Nantucket is a remarkably healthy place.
Nantucket people’s character extends beyond their hard work and religious toleration to their physical health. While moderate and active habits play a big role, the physical environment also promotes residents’ wellbeing. Since James thinks people’s environment has a huge influence on them, this isn’t a surprising view.
Themes
James knows of a single lawyer who has settled on Nantucket, but most of his wealth comes from his heiress wife and not from his practice. James is surprised that more lawyers haven’t settled here, since usually “they are plants that will grow in any soil that is cultivated by the hands of others,” gaining from their fellows’ misfortunes. America’s founding fathers did such a good job of extinguishing many evils that it’s a shame they didn’t do the same with lawyers.
Here and in other letters, James reserves some of his sharpest sarcasm for lawyers. He never explains exactly how he arrived at this level of distaste, but he regards them as unethical people who enrich themselves at others’ expense. Since he values individual hard work so highly, it’s not too surprising that he would question the ethics of making one’s living this way.
Themes
Literary Devices
There are no military establishments or even governors on Nantucket, only a light civil code. A resident can live his whole life without ever needing to appeal to the law. It nevertheless serves to protect individuals, levying mild taxes.
As usual, James advocates for the least intrusive form of government possible, believing that government should exist to defend people in cases of injustice, but should otherwise leave people alone to conduct their affairs as they wish.
Themes
Like the law, worship is very simple on the island. Elders are the Quaker congregation’s only teachers, and they do most of the work of instruction, visiting, and comforting. The Presbyterians have a pastor to teach them, and the simplicity of their worship is second only to the Quakers’. Members of both denominations live and work together without any rancor.
James depicts simplicity as being the overarching tone of people’s lives, and that pattern even extends to religion. These denominations’ preference for simplicity in rites and hierarchies fits with the American ethos of freedom, equality, and neighborly goodwill that James revisits throughout the letters.
Themes
James believes there are no enslaved people living on Nantucket, at least among the Quakers. While slavery continues to be practiced all around them, Quakers alone “[lament] that shocking insult offered to humanity.”
The Society of Friends (Quakers) maintained a strong anti-slavery stance from the group’s founding in the 1600s, and Quakers were often involved in helping people who were formerly enslaved.
Themes
If James had the time and ability, he would show Mr. F.B. how “one diffusive scene of happiness” prevails from America’s seashores to its wilderness. This happiness is only disrupted by individual folly, litigiousness, and natural disaster. He hopes that the people of Nantucket will enjoy such peace and happiness for ages to come.
Obviously, it’s not realistic to say that everyone in America is happy, but James wants F.B. to see that, in places as different as Nantucket and the Pennsylvania countryside, extensive freedom allows people to live as best they can. James’s list of obstacles to happiness is interesting—besides foolishness and litigiousness (quickness to sue), he doesn’t seem to have a clear category for simple cruelty and oppression, which surely made many people unhappy.
Themes
