According to Thomas Philbrick (listed above, pages 43-166), Letters was received as the most recent contribution to a growing body of works which sought (or pretended) to supply the British reading public with reliable accounts of the land and the peoples of the troublesome North American colonies.
I. Outline
Letter I: Introduction - establishes the circumstances of James, the American Farmer's correspondence with Mr. F. B. and suggests the point of view of the succeeding letters (a systematic survey of American society in all its manifestations). Letter II: Consists of an informal and impressionistic report "On the Situation , Feelings, and Pleasures of an American Farmer" as the narrator has experienced them on his farm in central Pennsylvania. Letter III: "What is an American?" attempts to answer the query of its title by taking a sweeping survey of the impact of America on the European immigrant, a survey which sketches the diversity of American life but which concentrates on the rural culture of the middle colonies. Letters IV-VIII: Describe in detail the manners and customs of the whaling villages of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.
Letter IX: Gives a brief account of Charleston, South Carolina.II. Importance of the Letters
Letters X-XI: Return the reader to the middle colonies, first for some sketches of the birds and snakes on the narrator's farm and then for the report of a Russian gentleman on his visit to John Bartram, the celebrated Pennsylvania naturalist.
Letter XII: The farmer pictures, in highly emotional colors, the disruption of his life by the outbreak of the Revolution and expresses his intention of fleeing with his family to an Indian village in the remote wilderness.
1. Provides useful information and understanding of the New World.2. Creation of personas, or disguises - James, the American Farmer.III. Limitations of the Letters
3. Tries to create an American identity - it is an attempt to describe an entire country, not merely regional colonies.
4. Celebrates American innocence and simplicity.
5. Describes American tolerance for religious diversity.
6. Asks the important question - what is an American?
7. He is the first writer to explore the concept of the American Dream.
1. Specific details in matters of geography, religion, history, and politics are missing.
2. He glosses over the issue of slavery.
3. American agriculture is treated generally too - absence of details.IV. Features of the Utopian Frontier
Mild government, no church tithes or dues, no autocratic prince or lord, no "absurd ordinances," no middleman in agriculture, peaceable inhabitants, no military laws, and no conscription or draft.
Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 2: St. Jean De Crevecoeur." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. URL: http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap2/creve.html (November 2, 2011).
