For Crèvecoeur, as conveyed through James, America is unique in the world of his day. Because America is such a new country, novelties can be found there that can’t be found elsewhere in the world. One of James’s favorite points is the colonies’ curious blend of nationalities—people emigrate to America from many different European countries, so the average American has a “strange mixture of blood.” What these diverse people have in common, according to James, is a determination to seize opportunity and improve their lives in a new land. A century before he wrote in the late 1700s, America was mostly a wilderness, but now it is filled with farms, villages, and cities. Because of emigrants’ virtuous hard work and industry, James suggests, America has become an incredible success story. James doesn’t claim that everyone can become rich in America. Rather, he proposes that Americans have avenues to try to succeed that were closed to them in Europe; and even if they don’t become wealthy, most people who work hard should be able to achieve a stable, comfortable life.
James argues that Americans work hard because they work for themselves. They don’t have to labor for a nobleman or prince under an oppressive feudal system. Because Americans are landowners instead of tenants, they have the chance to become productive and self-sufficient in a way they could never be in Europe. As they become landowners, they also gain self-respect, their ambition grows, and they work even harder for themselves and their children. James offers the story of Andrew the Hebridean to illustrate how emigrants hailing from humble origins can become successful, not through any remarkable means, but simply by setting goals, working hard, and integrating into a community. Unimpeded by greedy landlords or oppressive laws, Andrew is able to start a farm and support his family within a few years of landing at Philadelphia. James also spends several letters describing the colonization of Nantucket in detail to show how even a barren, sandy island can yield success through emigrants’ ingenuity and effort. Through his choice of examples, Crèvecoeur argues that America is truly a land of opportunity for those willing to be industrious.
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Emigration, Hard Work, and Success Quotes in Letters from an American Farmer
It is my bees, however, which afford me the most pleasing and extensive themes; let me look at them when I will, their government, their industry, their quarrels, their passions, always present me with something new[.]
Here are no aristocratical families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, […] no great manufactures employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury. The rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other as they are in Europe. Some few towns excepted, we are all tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida.
The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas and form new opinions. From involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labour, he has passed to toils of a very different nature, rewarded by ample subsistence. This is an American.
Their children will therefore grow up less zealous and more indifferent in matters of religion than their parents. The foolish vanity or, rather, the fury of making proselytes is unknown here; they have no time, the seasons call for all their attention, and thus in a few years this mixed neighbourhood will exhibit a strange religious medley that will be neither pure Catholicism nor pure Calvinism.
The powerful lord, the wealthy merchant, on seeing the superb mansion finished, never can feel half the joy and real happiness which was felt and enjoyed on that day by this honest Hebridean, though this new dwelling, erected in the midst of the woods, was nothing more than a square inclosure, composed of twenty-four large, clumsy logs, let in at the ends. When the work was finished, the company made the woods resound with the noise of their three cheers and the honest wishes they formed for Andrew’s prosperity. He could say nothing, but with thankful tears he shook hands with them all.
Yet I have a spot in my view, where none of these occupations are performed, which will, I hope, reward us for the trouble of inspection; but though it is barren in its soil, insignificant in its extent, inconvenient in its situation, deprived of materials for building, it seems to have been inhabited merely to prove what mankind can do when happily governed!
After all, is it not better to be possessed of a single whale-boat or a few sheep pastures, to live free and independent under the mildest government, in a healthy climate, in a land of charity and benevolence, than to be wretched as so many are in Europe, possessing nothing but their industry; tossed from one rough wave to another; engaged either in the most servile labours for the smallest pittance or fettered with the links of the most irksome dependence, even without the hopes of rising?
Idleness is the most heinous sin that can be committed in Nantucket: an idle man would soon be pointed out as an object of compassion, for idleness is considered as another word for want and hunger. This principle is so thoroughly well understood and is become so universal, so prevailing a prejudice, that, literally speaking, they are never idle.
