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J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer (Author…

- - - - In his writings, he does not seem hostile to Americans for this treatment. Could his writing have been used to help ease the tension between him and other Americans?
- - - - Rural New York.
    - - The author goes to great lengths to describe how life is better here.
      - Europe is often critiziced for its treatment of its citizens
    - - Very positive
        
        "and I am happier now I thought myself before." (Letter 2, 23)
    - - "Men are like plants; the goodness and flavour of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow." (Letter 3, 56)
        
        He is referring to both the land itself and its people. In Europe, the poor suffer. In America, they have the chance to live a better life.
- - - - Merchants
        
        "Is he a merchant? the avenues of trade are infinite" (Letter 3, 75)
      - Laborers
        
        "Is he a labourer, sober and industrious? he need not go many miles, nor receive many informations before he will be hired, well fed at the table of his employer, and paid four or five times more than he can get in Europe." (Letter 3, 75)
      - Farmers
        
        "Does he want uncultivated lands? Thousands of acres present themselves, which he may purchase cheap. " (Letter 3, 75)
    - - To encourage people, especially the poorer classes, to move to America.
- - - - Because this book was published in Europe, how would it have been recieved by the citizens? Or the wealthy classes?
  - - - He claims that even the slaves have better life in America, compared to people that live in other parts of the world.
        
        He is not implying that slavery is a good thing, though.
  - - - "they are mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race now called Americans have arisen. The eastern provinces must indeed be excepted, as being the unmixed descendants of Englishmen." (letter 3, 51)
        
        Helps cement the idea of America being a "melting pot"
        
        Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world. (letter 3, 55)
    - - "Their avarice, removed from the eyes of their superiors, knows no bounds; and aided by a little superiority of knowledge, these traders deceive them, and even sometimes shed blood. Hence those shocking violations, those sudden devastations which have so often stained our frontiers, when hundreds of innocent people have been sacrificed for the crimes of a few. It was in consequence of such behaviour, that the Indians took the hatchet against the Virginians in 1774. Thus are our first steps trod, thus are our first trees felled, in general, by the most vicious of our people and thus the path is opened for the arrival of a second and better class, the true American freeholders; the most respectable set of people in this part of the world..." (Letter 3, 72)
        
        He criticizes the first explorers for their greed. He also says that the future Americans are much more civilized.
        
        why would the Americans want to distance themselves from the first colonists?