Books: Letters from an American Farmer
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Hector St. John de Crevecoeur >> Letters from an American Farmer
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Thus I passed several days in ease, improvement, and pleasure; I
observed in all the operations of his farm, as well as in the mutual
correspondence between the master and the inferior members of his
family, the greatest ease and decorum; not a word like command
seemed to exceed the tone of a simple wish. The very negroes
themselves appeared to partake of such a decency of behaviour, and
modesty of countenance, as I had never before observed. By what
means, said I, Mr. Bertram, do you rule your slaves so well, that
they seem to do their work with all the cheerfulness of white men?
"Though our erroneous prejudices and opinions once induced us to
look upon them as fit only for slavery, though ancient custom had
very unfortunately taught us to keep them in bondage; yet of late,
in consequence of the remonstrances of several Friends, and of the
good books they have published on that subject, our society treats
them very differently. With us they are now free. I give those whom
thee didst see at my table, eighteen pounds a year, with victuals
and clothes, and all other privileges which white men enjoy. Our
society treats them now as the companions of our labours; and by
this management, as well as by means of the education we have given
them, they are in general become a new set of beings. Those whom I
admit to my table, I have found to be good, trusty, moral men; when
they do not what we think they should do, we dismiss them, which is
all the punishment we inflict. Other societies of Christians keep
them still as slaves, without teaching them any kind of religious
principles: what motive beside fear can they have to behave well? In
the first settlement of this province, we employed them as slaves, I
acknowledge; but when we found that good example, gentle admonition,
and religious principles could lead them to subordination and
sobriety, we relinquished a method so contrary to the profession of
Christianity. We gave them freedom, and yet few have quitted their
ancient masters. The women breed in our families; and we become
attached to one another. I taught mine to read and write; they love
God, and fear his judgments. The oldest person among them transacts
my business in Philadelphia, with a punctuality, from which he has
never deviated. They constantly attend our meetings, they
participate in health and sickness, infancy and old age, in the
advantages our society affords. Such are the means we have made use
of, to relieve them from that bondage and ignorance in which they
were kept before. Thee perhaps hast been surprised to see them at my
table, but by elevating them to the rank of freemen, they
necessarily acquire that emulation without which we ourselves should
fall into debasement and profligate ways." Mr. Bertram, this is the
most philosophical treatment of negroes that I have heard of; happy
would it be for America would other denominations of Christians
imbibe the same principles, and follow the same admirable rules. A
great number of men would be relieved from those cruel shackles,
under which they now groan; and under this impression, I cannot
endure to spend more time in the southern provinces. The method with
which they are treated there, the meanness of their food, the
severity of their tasks, are spectacles I have not patience to
behold. "I am glad to see that thee hast so much compassion; are
there any slaves in thy country?" Yes, unfortunately, but they are
more properly civil than domestic slaves; they are attached to the
soil on which they live; it is the remains of ancient barbarous
customs, established in the days of the greatest ignorance and
savageness of manners! and preserved notwithstanding the repeated
tears of humanity, the loud calls of policy, and the commands of
religion. The pride of great men, with the avarice of landholders,
make them look on this class as necessary tools of husbandry; as if
freemen could not cultivate the ground. "And is it really so, Friend
Iwan? To be poor, to be wretched, to be a slave, are hard indeed;
existence is not worth enjoying on those terms. I am afraid thy
country can never flourish under such impolitic government." I am
very much of your opinion, Mr. Bertram, though I am in hopes that
the present reign, illustrious by so many acts of the soundest
policy, will not expire without this salutary, this necessary
emancipation; which would fill the Russian empire with tears of
gratitude. "How long hast thee been in this country?" Four years,
Sir. "Why thee speakest English almost like a native; what a toil a
traveller must undergo to learn various languages, to divest himself
of his native prejudices, and to accommodate himself to the customs
of all those among whom he chooseth to reside."
Thus I spent my time with this enlightened botanist--this worthy
citizen; who united all the simplicity of rustic manners to the most
useful learning. Various and extensive were the conversations that
filled the measure of my visit. I accompanied him to his fields, to
his barn, to his bank, to his garden, to his study, and at last to
the meeting of the society on the Sunday following. It was at the
town of Chester, whither the whole family went in two waggons; Mr.
Bertram and I on horseback. When I entered the house where the
friends were assembled, who might be about two hundred men and
women, the involuntary impulse of ancient custom made me pull off my
hat; but soon recovering myself, I sat with it on, at the end of a
bench. The meeting-house was a square building devoid of any
ornament whatever; the whiteness of the walls, the conveniency of
seats, that of a large stove, which in cold weather keeps the whole
house warm, were the only essential things which I observed. Neither
pulpit nor desk, fount nor altar, tabernacle nor organ, were there
to be seen; it is merely a spacious room, in which these good people
meet every Sunday. A profound silence ensued, which lasted about
half an hour; every one had his head reclined, and seemed absorbed
in profound meditation, when a female friend arose, and declared
with a most engaging modesty, that the spirit moved her to entertain
them on the subject she had chosen. She treated it with great
propriety, as a moral useful discourse, and delivered it without
theological parade or the ostentation of learning. Either she must
have been a great adept in public speaking, or had studiously
prepared herself; a circumstance that cannot well be supposed, as it
is a point, in their profession, to utter nothing but what arises
from spontaneous impulse: or else the great spirit of the world, the
patronage and influence of which they all came to invoke, must have
inspired her with the soundest morality. Her discourse lasted three
quarters of an hour. I did not observe one single face turned toward
her; never before had I seen a congregation listening with so much
attention to a public oration. I observed neither contortions of
body, nor any kind of affectation in her face, style, or manner of
utterance; everything was natural, and therefore pleasing, and shall
I tell you more, she was very handsome, although upward of forty. As
soon as she had finished, every one seemed to return to their former
meditation for about a quarter of an hour; when they rose up by
common consent, and after some general conversation, departed.
How simple their precepts, how unadorned their religious system: how
few the ceremonies through which they pass during the course of
their lives! At their deaths they are interred by the fraternity,
without pomp, without prayers; thinking it then too late to alter
the course of God's eternal decrees: and as you well know, without
either monument or tombstone. Thus after having lived under the
mildest government, after having been guided by the mildest
doctrine, they die just as peaceably as those who being educated in
more pompous religions, pass through a variety of sacraments,
subscribe to complicated creeds, and enjoy the benefits of a church
establishment. These good people flatter themselves, with following
the doctrines of Jesus Christ, in that simplicity with which they
were delivered: an happier system could not have been devised for
the use of mankind. It appears to be entirely free from those
ornaments and political additions which each country and each
government hath fashioned after its own manners.
At the door of this meeting house, I had been invited to spend some
days at the houses of some respectable farmers in the neighbourhood.
The reception I met with everywhere insensibly led me to spend two
months among these good people; and I must say they were the golden
days of my riper years. I never shall forget the gratitude I owe
them for the innumerable kindnesses they heaped on me; it was to the
letter you gave me that I am indebted for the extensive acquaintance
I now have throughout Pennsylvania. I must defer thanking you as I
ought, until I see you again. Before that time comes, I may perhaps
entertain you with more curious anecdotes than this letter affords.-
-Farewell. I----N AL----Z.
LETTER XII
DISTRESSES OF A FRONTIER MAN
I wish for a change of place; the hour is come at last, that I must
fly from my house and abandon my farm! But what course shall I
steer, inclosed as I am? The climate best adapted to my present
situation and humour would be the polar regions, where six months
day and six months night divide the dull year: nay, a simple Aurora
Borealis would suffice me, and greatly refresh my eyes, fatigued now
by so many disagreeable objects. The severity of those climates,
that great gloom, where melancholy dwells, would be perfectly
analogous to the turn of my mind. Oh, could I remove my plantation
to the shores of the Oby, willingly would I dwell in the hut of a
Samoyede; with cheerfulness would I go and bury myself in the cavern
of a Laplander. Could I but carry my family along with me, I would
winter at Pello, or Tobolsky, in order to enjoy the peace and
innocence of that country. But let me arrive under the pole, or
reach the antipodes, I never can leave behind me the remembrance of
the dreadful scenes to which I have been a witness; therefore never
can I be happy! Happy, why would I mention that sweet, that
enchanting word? Once happiness was our portion; now it is gone from
us, and I am afraid not to be enjoyed again by the present
generation! Whichever way I look, nothing but the most frightful
precipices present themselves to my view, in which hundreds of my
friends and acquaintances have already perished: of all animals that
live on the surface of this planet, what is man when no longer
connected with society; or when he finds himself surrounded by a
convulsed and a half dissolved one? He cannot live in solitude, he
must belong to some community bound by some ties, however imperfect.
Men mutually support and add to the boldness and confidence of each
other; the weakness of each is strengthened by the force of the
whole. I had never before these calamitous times formed any such
ideas; I lived on, laboured and prospered, without having ever
studied on what the security of my life and the foundation of my
prosperity were established: I perceived them just as they left me.
Never was a situation so singularly terrible as mine, in every
possible respect, as a member of an extensive society, as a citizen
of an inferior division of the same society, as a husband, as a
father, as a man who exquisitely feels for the miseries of others as
well as for his own! But alas! so much is everything now subverted
among us, that the very word misery, with which we were hardly
acquainted before, no longer conveys the same ideas; or rather tired
with feeling for the miseries of others, every one feels now for
himself alone. When I consider myself as connected in all these
characters, as bound by so many cords, all uniting in my heart, I am
seized with a fever of the mind, I am transported beyond that degree
of calmness which is necessary to delineate our thoughts. I feel as
if my reason wanted to leave me, as if it would burst its poor weak
tenement: again I try to compose myself, I grow cool, and
preconceiving the dreadful loss, I endeavour to retain the useful
guest.
You know the position of our settlement; I need not therefore
describe it. To the west it is inclosed by a chain of mountains,
reaching to----; to the east, the country is as yet but thinly
inhabited; we are almost insulated, and the houses are at a
considerable distance from each other. From the mountains we have
but too much reason to expect our dreadful enemy; the wilderness is
a harbour where it is impossible to find them. It is a door through
which they can enter our country whenever they please; and, as they
seem determined to destroy the whole chain of frontiers, our fate
cannot be far distant: from Lake Champlain, almost all has been
conflagrated one after another. What renders these incursions still
more terrible is, that they most commonly take place in the dead of
the night; we never go to our fields but we are seized with an
involuntary fear, which lessens our strength and weakens our labour.
No other subject of conversation intervenes between the different
accounts, which spread through the country, of successive acts of
devastation; and these told in chimney-corners, swell themselves in
our affrighted imaginations into the most terrific ideas! We never
sit down either to dinner or supper, but the least noise immediately
spreads a general alarm and prevents us from enjoying the comfort of
our meals. The very appetite proceeding from labour and peace of
mind is gone; we eat just enough to keep us alive: our sleep is
disturbed by the most frightful dreams; sometimes I start awake, as
if the great hour of danger was come; at other times the howling of
our dogs seems to announce the arrival of the enemy: we leap out of
bed and run to arms; my poor wife with panting bosom and silent
tears, takes leave of me, as if we were to see each other no more;
she snatches the youngest children from their beds, who, suddenly
awakened, increase by their innocent questions the horror of the
dreadful moment. She tries to hide them in the cellar, as if our
cellar was inaccessible to the fire. I place all my servants at the
windows, and myself at the door, where I am determined to perish.
Fear industriously increases every sound; we all listen; each
communicates to the other his ideas and conjectures. We remain thus
sometimes for whole hours, our hearts and our minds racked by the
most anxious suspense: what a dreadful situation, a thousand times
worse than that of a soldier engaged in the midst of the most severe
conflict! Sometimes feeling the spontaneous courage of a man, I seem
to wish for the decisive minute; the next instant a message from my
wife, sent by one of the children, puzzling me beside with their
little questions, unmans me: away goes my courage, and I descend
again into the deepest despondency. At last finding that it was a
false alarm, we return once more to our beds; but what good can the
kind sleep of nature do to us when interrupted by such scenes!
Securely placed as you are, you can have no idea of our agitations,
but by hear-say; no relation can be equal to what we suffer and to
what we feel. Every morning my youngest children are sure to have
frightful dreams to relate: in vain I exert my authority to keep
them silent, it is not in my power; and these images of their
disturbed imagination, instead of being frivolously looked upon as
in the days of our happiness, are on the contrary considered as
warnings and sure prognostics of our future fate. I am not a
superstitious man, but since our misfortunes, I am grown more timid,
and less disposed to treat the doctrine of omens with contempt.
Though these evils have been gradual, yet they do not become
habitual like other incidental evils. The nearer I view the end of
this catastrophe, the more I shudder. But why should I trouble you
with such unconnected accounts; men secure and out of danger are
soon fatigued with mournful details: can you enter with me into
fellowship with all these afflictive sensations; have you a tear
ready to shed over the approaching ruin of a once opulent and
substantial family? Read this I pray with the eyes of sympathy; with
a tender sorrow, pity the lot of those whom you once called your
friends; who were once surrounded with plenty, ease, and perfect
security; but who now expect every night to be their last, and who
are as wretched as criminals under an impending sentence of the law.
As a member of a large society which extends to many parts of the
world, my connection with it is too distant to be as strong as that
which binds me to the inferior division in the midst of which I
live. I am told that the great nation, of which we are a part, is
just, wise, and free, beyond any other on earth, within its own
insular boundaries; but not always so to its distant conquests: I
shall not repeat all I have heard, because I cannot believe half of
it. As a citizen of a smaller society, I find that any kind of
opposition to its now prevailing sentiments, immediately begets
hatred: how easily do men pass from loving, to hating and cursing
one another! I am a lover of peace, what must I do? I am divided
between the respect I feel for the ancient connection, and the fear
of innovations, with the consequence of which I am not well
acquainted; as they are embraced by my own countrymen. I am
conscious that I was happy before this unfortunate Revolution. I
feel that I am no longer so; therefore I regret the change. This is
the only mode of reasoning adapted to persons in my situation. If I
attach myself to the Mother Country, which is 3000 miles from me, I
become what is called an enemy to my own region; if I follow the
rest of my countrymen, I become opposed to our ancient masters: both
extremes appear equally dangerous to a person of so little weight
and consequence as I am, whose energy and example are of no avail.
As to the argument on which the dispute is founded, I know little
about it. Much has been said and written on both sides, but who has
a judgment capacious and clear enough to decide? The great moving
principles which actuate both parties are much hid from vulgar eyes,
like mine; nothing but the plausible and the probable are offered to
our contemplation.
The innocent class are always the victim of the few; they are in all
countries and at all times the inferior agents, on which the popular
phantom is erected; they clamour, and must toil, and bleed, and are
always sure of meeting with oppression and rebuke. It is for the
sake of the great leaders on both sides, that so much blood must be
spilt; that of the people is counted as nothing. Great events are
not achieved for us, though it is by us that they are principally
accomplished; by the arms, the sweat, the lives of the people. Books
tell me so much that they inform me of nothing. Sophistry, the bane
of freemen, launches forth in all her deceiving attire! After all,
most men reason from passions; and shall such an ignorant individual
as I am decide, and say this side is right, that side is wrong?
Sentiment and feeling are the only guides I know. Alas, how should I
unravel an argument, in which reason herself hath given way to
brutality and bloodshed! What then must I do? I ask the wisest
lawyers, the ablest casuists, the warmest patriots; for I mean
honestly. Great Source of wisdom! inspire me with light sufficient
to guide my benighted steps out of this intricate maze! Shall I
discard all my ancient principles, shall I renounce that name, that
nation which I held once so respectable? I feel the powerful
attraction; the sentiments they inspired grew with my earliest
knowledge, and were grafted upon the first rudiments of my
education. On the other hand, shall I arm myself against that
country where I first drew breath, against the play-mates of my
youth, my bosom friends, my acquaintance?--the idea makes me
shudder! Must I be called a parricide, a traitor, a villain, lose
the esteem of all those whom I love, to preserve my own; be shunned
like a rattlesnake, or be pointed at like a bear? I have neither
heroism not magnanimity enough to make so great a sacrifice. Here I
am tied, I am fastened by numerous strings, nor do I repine at the
pressure they cause; ignorant as I am, I can pervade the utmost
extent of the calamities which have already overtaken our poor
afflicted country. I can see the great and accumulated ruin yet
extending itself as far as the theatre of war has reached; I hear
the groans of thousands of families now ruined and desolated by our
aggressors. I cannot count the multitude of orphans this war has
made; nor ascertain the immensity of blood we have lost. Some have
asked, whether it was a crime to resist; to repel some parts of this
evil. Others have asserted, that a resistance so general makes
pardon unattainable, and repentance useless: and dividing the crime
among so many, renders it imperceptible. What one party calls
meritorious, the other denominates flagitious. These opinions vary,
contract, or expand, like the events of the war on which they are
founded. What can an insignificant man do in the midst of these
jarring contradictory parties, equally hostile to persons situated
as I am? And after all who will be the really guilty?--Those most
certainly who fail of success. Our fate, the fate of thousands, is
then necessarily involved in the dark wheel of fortune. Why then so
many useless reasonings; we are the sport of fate. Farewell
education, principles, love of our country, farewell; all are become
useless to the generality of us: he who governs himself according to
what he calls his principles, may be punished either by one party or
the other, for those very principles. He who proceeds without
principle, as chance, timidity, or self-preservation directs, will
not perhaps fare better; but he will be less blamed. What are we in
the great scale of events, we poor defenceless frontier inhabitants?
What is it to the gazing world, whether we breathe or whether we
die? Whatever virtue, whatever merit and disinterestedness we may
exhibit in our secluded retreats, of what avail?
We are like the pismires destroyed by the plough; whose destruction
prevents not the future crop. Self-preservation, therefore, the rule
of nature, seems to be the best rule of conduct; what good can we do
by vain resistance, by useless efforts? The cool, the distant
spectator, placed in safety, may arraign me for ingratitude, may
bring forth the principles of Solon or Montesquieu; he may look on
me as wilfully guilty; he may call me by the most opprobrious names.
Secure from personal danger, his warm imagination, undisturbed by
the least agitation of the heart, will expatiate freely on this
grand question; and will consider this extended field, but as
exhibiting the double scene of attack and defence. To him the object
becomes abstracted, the intermediate glares, the perspective
distance and a variety of opinions unimpaired by affections,
presents to his mind but one set of ideas. Here he proclaims the
high guilt of the one, and there the right of the other; but let him
come and reside with us one single month, let him pass with us
through all the successive hours of necessary toil, terror and
affright, let him watch with us, his musket in his hand, through
tedious, sleepless nights, his imagination furrowed by the keen
chisel of every passion; let his wife and his children become
exposed to the most dreadful hazards of death; let the existence of
his property depend on a single spark, blown by the breath of an
enemy; let him tremble with us in our fields, shudder at the
rustling of every leaf; let his heart, the seat of the most
affecting passions, be powerfully wrung by hearing the melancholy
end of his relations and friends; let him trace on the map the
progress of these desolations; let his alarmed imagination predict
to him the night, the dreadful night when it may be his turn to
perish, as so many have perished before. Observe then, whether the
man will not get the better of the citizen, whether his political
maxims will not vanish! Yes, he will cease to glow so warmly with
the glory of the metropolis; all his wishes will be turned toward
the preservation of his family! Oh, were he situated where I am,
were his house perpetually filled, as mine is, with miserable
victims just escaped from the flames and the scalping knife, telling
of barbarities and murders that make human nature tremble; his
situation would suspend every political reflection, and expel every
abstract idea. My heart is full and involuntarily takes hold of any
notion from whence it can receive ideal ease or relief. I am
informed that the king has the most numerous, as well as the
fairest, progeny of children, of any potentate now in the world: he
may be a great king, but he must feel as we common mortals do, in
the good wishes he forms for their lives and prosperity. His mind no
doubt often springs forward on the wings of anticipation, and
contemplates us as happily settled in the world. If a poor frontier
inhabitant may be allowed to suppose this great personage the first
in our system, to be exposed but for one hour, to the exquisite
pangs we so often feel, would not the preservation of so numerous a
family engross all his thoughts; would not the ideas of dominion and
other felicities attendant on royalty all vanish in the hour of
danger? The regal character, however sacred, would be superseded by
the stronger, because more natural one of man and father. Oh! did he
but know the circumstances of this horrid war, I am sure he would
put a stop to that long destruction of parents and children. I am
sure that while he turned his ears to state policy, he would
attentively listen also to the dictates of nature, that great
parent; for, as a good king, he no doubt wishes to create, to spare,
and to protect, as she does. Must I then, in order to be called a
faithful subject, coolly, and philosophically say, it is necessary
for the good of Britain, that my children's brains should be dashed
against the walls of the house in which they were reared; that my
wife should be stabbed and scalped before my face; that I should be
either murdered or captivated; or that for greater expedition we
should all be locked up and burnt to ashes as the family of the B---
-n was? Must I with meekness wait for that last pitch of desolation,
and receive with perfect resignation so hard a fate, from ruffians,
acting at such a distance from the eyes of any superior; monsters,
left to the wild impulses of the wildest nature. Could the lions of
Africa be transported here and let loose, they would no doubt kill
us in order to prey upon our carcasses! but their appetites would
not require so many victims. Shall I wait to be punished with death,
or else to be stripped of all food and raiment, reduced to despair
without redress and without hope. Shall those who may escape, see
everything they hold dear destroyed and gone. Shall those few
survivors, lurking in some obscure corner, deplore in vain the fate
of their families, mourn over parents either captivated, butchered,
or burnt; roam among our wilds, and wait for death at the foot of
some tree, without a murmur, or without a sigh, for the good of the
cause? No, it is impossible! so astonishing a sacrifice is not to be
expected from human nature, it must belong to beings of an inferior
or superior order, actuated by less, or by more refined principles.
Even those great personages who are so far elevated above the common
ranks of men, those, I mean, who wield and direct so many thunders;
those who have let loose against us these demons of war, could they
be transported here, and metamorphosed into simple planters as we
are, they would, from being the arbiters of human destiny, sink into
miserable victims; they would feel and exclaim as we do, and be as
much at a loss what line of conduct to prosecute. Do you well
comprehend the difficulties of our situation? If we stay we are sure
to perish at one time or another; no vigilance on our part can save
us; if we retire, we know not where to go; every house is filled
with refugees as wretched as ourselves; and if we remove we become
beggars. The property of farmers is not like that of merchants; and
absolute poverty is worse than death. If we take up arms to defend
ourselves, we are denominated rebels; should we not be rebels
against nature, could we be shamefully passive? Shall we then, like
martyrs, glory in an allegiance, now become useless, and voluntarily
expose ourselves to a species of desolation which, though it ruin us
entirely, yet enriches not our ancient masters. By this inflexible
and sullen attachment, we shall be despised by our countrymen, and
destroyed by our ancient friends; whatever we may say, whatever
merit we may claim, will not shelter us from those indiscriminate
blows, given by hired banditti, animated by all those passions which
urge men to shed the blood of others; how bitter the thought! On the
contrary, blows received by the hands of those from whom we expected
protection, extinguish ancient respect, and urge us to self-defence-
-perhaps to revenge; this is the path which nature herself points
out, as well to the civilised as to the uncivilised. The Creator of
hearts has himself stamped on them those propensities at their first
formation; and must we then daily receive this treatment from a
power once so loved? The Fox flies or deceives the hounds that
pursue him; the bear, when overtaken, boldly resists and attacks
them; the hen, the very timid hen, fights for the preservation of
her chickens, nor does she decline to attack, and to meet on the
wing even the swift kite. Shall man, then, provided both with
instinct and reason, unmoved, unconcerned, and passive, see his
subsistence consumed, and his progeny either ravished from him or
murdered? Shall fictitious reason extinguish the unerring impulse of
instinct? No; my former respect, my former attachment vanishes with
my safety; that respect and attachment was purchased by protection,
and it has ceased. Could not the great nation we belong to have
accomplished her designs by means of her numerous armies, by means
of those fleets which cover the ocean? Must those who are masters of
two thirds of the trade of the world; who have in their hands the
power which almighty gold can give; who possess a species of wealth
that increases with their desires; must they establish their
conquest with our insignificant innocent blood!
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