French immigrant J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur writes a series of letters in the fictional persona of James, a Pennsylvania farmer during the Revolutionary War period. James addresses his letters to a friend named F.B., a European who recently visited him in America. In the first letter, James, who has little formal schooling, demurs from writing the letters F.B. has requested, insisting that he isn’t educated enough to write informative, engaging letters. But his minister friend encourages him to try anyway, arguing that a cultured Englishman like F.B. would learn much from James’s account of what makes Americans’ lives so happy. Finally, James agrees, though he urges F.B. not to think his efforts presumptuous; he’s knows he’s just a farmer, after all.
In Letter II, James writes of the joys of being an American farmer. He inherited his farm from his father. He believes that there’s no lifestyle in the world that affords as much freedom as that of a farmer; he’s not beholden to a landlord or a demanding government, and the land supplies everything that he, his wife, and his children need. Being a landowner is the basis of James’s rights, freedom, and power as a citizen. It also gives him plenty of opportunity to observe and reflect on both wild and domestic animals that live on his land. He has a special fondness for hardworking bees and loves to track them into the woods to gather honey from their hives. Though it might not seem like much to a well-traveled European, James thinks his life is rich and satisfying, and he desires no other kind of happiness for his children.
In Letter III, James explores the nature of American identity. Lacking aristocracy and established religion, America is very different from Europe. Except for town-dwellers, most Americans farm, and there isn’t a stark disparity between rich and poor. Also, many Americans descend from a blend of European nationalities, emigrants who rose from humble origins. In Europe, their ancestors had nothing except family ties; in America, by contrast, they have land, the ability to earn their own food, and the privileges of citizenship. America has diverse landscapes—the seacoast, the mid-Atlantic farm country, and the western frontier—which shape the people who live there. (James does think that frontiersmen tend to be “barbarous” and not as enterprising as seafarers or farmers.) America’s religious mixture is also novel in its diversity; James says that Americans are too busy farming to be overzealous about their adherence to denominations, and they readily intermarry with Christians of differing beliefs. But the most important thing about Americans is their willingness to work hard to establish a life for themselves and their children. While not every emigrant will become wealthy, the hardworking can expect modest success and a comfortable life. James tells the story of Andrew, an emigrant from the Scottish Hebrides, to illustrate how an emigrant’s success is not necessarily something remarkable, but the result of simple virtue and determination.
Next, James devotes Letters IV through VIII to describing a more specific part of America: namely, the island of Nantucket and its people’s customs. He chooses Nantucket because it’s a rocky, barren environment, yet its inhabitants have nevertheless made a prosperous life for themselves. There was nothing special about Nantucket’s pioneers, he says, except that they worked hard, and their government didn’t interfere with their lives. Instead of trying to farm the island’s sandy, swampy land, Nantucket’s settlers planned to become fishermen. Because the soil is so poor, they were motivated to become excellent seafarers and to gradually develop a better and better whaling industry, whose practices James discusses in detail. Chasing and harpooning whales on the open ocean is a very dangerous business, which both Nantucket’s white and native fishermen have mastered; out of it they’ve built a booming industry in whale oil. While not everyone in the whaling business gets rich, most people manage to live a modestly comfortable life, as long as they persevere and work hard. To this day, most islanders live simple, industrious lives and scorn luxury. James believes the example of Nantucket conveys the “one diffusive scene of happiness” that prevails across America.
In Letter IX, James moves to a description of Charleston, South Carolina, which James esteems less highly than Pennsylvania or Nantucket. He is especially critical of wealthy planters’ obliviousness to the sufferings of their enslaved people. While he acknowledges that some northerners practice slavery, too, he claims that they generally treat their enslaved people more humanely than southerners do. As an illustration, James tells the story of visiting a Carolina plantation and discovering an enslaved man dying in a cage in the woods; the man had been trapped there in retaliation for killing an overseer on the plantation. As much as he claims to be horrified by this barbarous act and to reject the planter’s self-defense for his actions, James doesn’t claim to have done anything to help the enslaved man at the time.
The following Letter X contains James’s further reflections on wildlife, particularly hummingbirds and snakes he’s seen around his farm. He recalls an especially vivid memory of watching two snakes chase and wrestle each another in his field until one of the snakes drowned the other; he found the sight of their coiled bodies strangely beautiful.
In a departure from the rest of the book, Letter XI is written not by James’s character, but in the persona of a Russian traveler and friend of James’s named Iwan. Iwan is visiting America because he believes it’s the country of the future. James sends Iwan to visit his friend John Bertram, a celebrated botanist. Iwan is fascinated by Bertram’s meticulously tended fields and husbandry methods, explaining that in Russia, much land is farmed by serfs who are sold like property and who lack the freedom to improve and enjoy the land like American farmers do.
The final Letter XII, “Distresses of a Frontier Man,” differs sharply in tone from most of the others. The Revolution has broken out, and James fears that British and American fighting along the frontier threatens his home and family. As a peace-loving man who feels loyalty to both England and America, he also dreads aligning himself with one side or the other—it seems that no matter what he chooses, he will be condemned for it, so he might as well protect his family before all else. After pouring 20 years of labor into his farm, he decides that his family must flee to a remote Indian village where the chief has promised him land and protection. He is familiar with native customs and finds Indians to be more peaceful and hospitable than most Europeans, so he isn’t afraid of living among them. However, he is determined to teach his sons farming so that Indian culture doesn’t make them too “wild,” and he won’t let his daughter marry an Indian man. He closes his letter with a prayer to God to protect his family and America as a whole, and an appeal to F.B. to sympathize with his sufferings.
