Books: Letters from an American Farmer
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Hector St. John de Crevecoeur >> Letters from an American Farmer
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Forty years ago this smiling country was thus inhabited; it is now
purged, a general decency of manners prevails throughout, and such
has been the fate of our best countries.
Exclusive of those general characteristics, each province has its
own, founded on the government, climate, mode of husbandry, customs,
and peculiarity of circumstances. Europeans submit insensibly to
these great powers, and become, in the course of a few generations,
not only Americans in general, but either Pennsylvanians,
Virginians, or provincials under some other name. Whoever traverses
the continent must easily observe those strong differences, which
will grow more evident in time. The inhabitants of Canada,
Massachusetts, the middle provinces, the southern ones will be as
different as their climates; their only points of unity will be
those of religion and language.
As I have endeavoured to show you how Europeans become Americans; it
may not be disagreeable to show you likewise how the various
Christian sects introduced, wear out, and how religious indifference
becomes prevalent. When any considerable number of a particular sect
happen to dwell contiguous to each other, they immediately erect a
temple, and there worship the Divinity agreeably to their own
peculiar ideas. Nobody disturbs them. If any new sect springs up in
Europe it may happen that many of its professors will come and
settle in American. As they bring their zeal with them, they are at
liberty to make proselytes if they can, and to build a meeting and
to follow the dictates of their consciences; for neither the
government nor any other power interferes. If they are peaceable
subjects, and are industrious, what is it to their neighbours how
and in what manner they think fit to address their prayers to the
Supreme Being? But if the sectaries are not settled close together,
if they are mixed with other denominations, their zeal will cool for
want of fuel, and will be extinguished in a little time. Then the
Americans become as to religion, what they are as to country, allied
to all. In them the name of Englishman, Frenchman, and European is
lost, and in like manner, the strict modes of Christianity as
practised in Europe are lost also. This effect will extend itself
still farther hereafter, and though this may appear to you as a
strange idea, yet it is a very true one. I shall be able perhaps
hereafter to explain myself better; in the meanwhile, let the
following example serve as my first justification.
Let us suppose you and I to be travelling; we observe that in this
house, to the right, lives a Catholic, who prays to God as he has
been taught, and believes in transubstantiation; he works and raises
wheat, he has a large family of children, all hale and robust; his
belief, his prayers offend nobody. About one mile farther on the
same road, his next neighbour may be a good honest plodding German
Lutheran, who addresses himself to the same God, the God of all,
agreeably to the modes he has been educated in, and believes in
consubstantiation; by so doing he scandalises nobody; he also works
in his fields, embellishes the earth, clears swamps, etc. What has
the world to do with his Lutheran principles? He persecutes nobody,
and nobody persecutes him, he visits his neighbours, and his
neighbours visit him. Next to him lives a seceder, the most
enthusiastic of all sectaries; his zeal is hot and fiery, but
separated as he is from others of the same complexion, he has no
congregation of his own to resort to, where he might cabal and
mingle religious pride with worldly obstinacy. He likewise raises
good crops, his house is handsomely painted, his orchard is one of
the fairest in the neighbourhood. How does it concern the welfare of
the country, or of the province at large, what this man's religious
sentiments are, or really whether he has any at all? He is a good
farmer, he is a sober, peaceable, good citizen: William Penn himself
would not wish for more. This is the visible character, the
invisible one is only guessed at, and is nobody's business. Next
again lives a Low Dutchman, who implicitly believes the rules laid
down by the synod of Dort. He conceives no other idea of a clergyman
than that of an hired man; if he does his work well he will pay him
the stipulated sum; if not he will dismiss him, and do without his
sermons, and let his church be shut up for years. But
notwithstanding this coarse idea, you will find his house and farm
to be the neatest in all the country; and you will judge by his
waggon and fat horses, that he thinks more of the affairs of this
world than of those of the next. He is sober and laborious,
therefore he is all he ought to be as to the affairs of this life;
as for those of the next, he must trust to the great Creator. Each
of these people instruct their children as well as they can, but
these instructions are feeble compared to those which are given to
the youth of the poorest class in Europe. 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. A very
perceptible indifference even in the first generation, will become
apparent; and it may happen that the daughter of the Catholic will
marry the son of the seceder, and settle by themselves at a distance
from their parents. What religious education will they give their
children? A very imperfect one. If there happens to be in the
neighbourhood any place of worship, we will suppose a Quaker's
meeting; rather than not show their fine clothes, they will go to
it, and some of them may perhaps attach themselves to that society.
Others will remain in a perfect state of indifference; the children
of these zealous parents will not be able to tell what their
religious principles are, and their grandchildren still less. The
neighbourhood of a place of worship generally leads them to it, and
the action of going thither, is the strongest evidence they can give
of their attachment to any sect. The Quakers are the only people who
retain a fondness for their own mode of worship; for be they ever so
far separated from each other, they hold a sort of communion with
the society, and seldom depart from its rules, at least in this
country. Thus all sects are mixed as well as all nations; thus
religious indifference is imperceptibly disseminated from one end of
the continent to the other; which is at present one of the strongest
characteristics of the Americans. Where this will reach no one can
tell, perhaps it may leave a vacuum fit to receive other systems.
Persecution, religious pride, the love of contradiction, are the
food of what the world commonly calls religion. These motives have
ceased here; zeal in Europe is confined; here it evaporates in the
great distance it has to travel; there it is a grain of powder
inclosed, here it burns away in the open air, and consumes without
effect.
But to return to our back settlers. I must tell you, that there is
something in the proximity of the woods, which is very singular. It
is with men as it is with the plants and animals that grow and live
in the forests; they are entirely different from those that live in
the plains. I will candidly tell you all my thoughts but you are not
to expect that I shall advance any reasons. By living in or near the
woods, their actions are regulated by the wildness of the
neighbourhood. The deer often come to eat their grain, the wolves to
destroy their sheep, the bears to kill their hogs, the foxes to
catch their poultry. This surrounding hostility immediately puts the
gun into their hands; they watch these animals, they kill some; and
thus by defending their property, they soon become professed
hunters; this is the progress; once hunters, farewell to the plough.
The chase renders them ferocious, gloomy, and unsociable; a hunter
wants no neighbour, he rather hates them, because he dreads the
competition. In a little time their success in the woods makes them
neglect their tillage. They trust to the natural fecundity of the
earth, and therefore do little; carelessness in fencing often
exposes what little they sow to destruction; they are not at home to
watch; in order therefore to make up the deficiency, they go oftener
to the woods. That new mode of life brings along with it a new set
of manners, which I cannot easily describe. These new manners being
grafted on the old stock, produce a strange sort of lawless
profligacy, the impressions of which are indelible. The manners of
the Indian natives are respectable, compared with this European
medley. Their wives and children live in sloth and inactivity; and
having no proper pursuits, you may judge what education the latter
receive. Their tender minds have nothing else to contemplate but the
example of their parents; like them they grow up a mongrel breed,
half civilised, half savage, except nature stamps on them some
constitutional propensities. That rich, that voluptuous sentiment is
gone that struck them so forcibly; the possession of their freeholds
no longer conveys to their minds the same pleasure and pride. To all
these reasons you must add, their lonely situation, and you cannot
imagine what an effect on manners the great distances they live from
each other has! Consider one of the last settlements in its first
view: of what is it composed? Europeans who have not that sufficient
share of knowledge they ought to have, in order to prosper; people
who have suddenly passed from oppression, dread of government, and
fear of laws, into the unlimited freedom of the woods. This sudden
change must have a very great effect on most men, and on that class
particularly. Eating of wild meat, whatever you may think, tends to
alter their temper: though all the proof I can adduce, is, that I
have seen it: and having no place of worship to resort to, what
little society this might afford is denied them. The Sunday
meetings, exclusive of religious benefits, were the only social
bonds that might have inspired them with some degree of emulation in
neatness. Is it then surprising to see men thus situated, immersed
in great and heavy labours, degenerate a little? It is rather a
wonder the effect is not more diffusive. The Moravians and the
Quakers are the only instances in exception to what I have advanced.
The first never settle singly, it is a colony of the society which
emigrates; they carry with them their forms, worship, rules, and
decency: the others never begin so hard, they are always able to buy
improvements, in which there is a great advantage, for by that time
the country is recovered from its first barbarity. Thus our bad
people are those who are half cultivators and half hunters; and the
worst of them are those who have degenerated altogether into the
hunting state. As old ploughmen and new men of the woods, as
Europeans and new made Indians, they contract the vices of both;
they adopt the moroseness and ferocity of a native, without his
mildness, or even his industry at home. If manners are not refined,
at least they are rendered simple and inoffensive by tilling the
earth; all our wants are supplied by it, our time is divided between
labour and rest, and leaves none for the commission of great
misdeeds. As hunters it is divided between the toil of the chase,
the idleness of repose, or the indulgence of inebriation. Hunting is
but a licentious idle life, and if it does not always pervert good
dispositions; yet, when it is united with bad luck, it leads to
want: want stimulates that propensity to rapacity and injustice, too
natural to needy men, which is the fatal gradation. After this
explanation of the effects which follow by living in the woods,
shall we yet vainly flatter ourselves with the hope of converting
the Indians? We should rather begin with converting our back-
settlers; and now if I dare mention the name of religion, its sweet
accents would be lost in the immensity of these woods. Men thus
placed are not fit either to receive or remember its mild
instructions; they want temples and ministers, but as soon as men
cease to remain at home, and begin to lead an erratic life, let them
be either tawny or white, they cease to be its disciples.
Thus have I faintly and imperfectly endeavoured to trace our society
from the sea to our woods! yet you must not imagine that every
person who moves back, acts upon the same principles, or falls into
the same degeneracy. Many families carry with them all their decency
of conduct, purity of morals, and respect of religion; but these are
scarce, the power of example is sometimes irresistible. Even among
these back-settlers, their depravity is greater or less, according
to what nation or province they belong. Were I to adduce proofs of
this, I might be accused of partiality. If there happens to be some
rich intervals, some fertile bottoms, in those remote districts, the
people will there prefer tilling the land to hunting, and will
attach themselves to it; but even on these fertile spots you may
plainly perceive the inhabitants to acquire a great degree of
rusticity and selfishness.
It is in consequence of this straggling situation, and the
astonishing power it has on manners, that the back-settlers of both
the Carolinas, Virginia, and many other parts, have been long a set
of lawless people; it has been even dangerous to travel among them.
Government can do nothing in so extensive a country, better it
should wink at these irregularities, than that it should use means
inconsistent with its usual mildness. Time will efface those stains:
in proportion as the great body of population approaches them they
will reform, and become polished and subordinate. Whatever has been
said of the four New England provinces, no such degeneracy of
manners has ever tarnished their annals; their back-settlers have
been kept within the bounds of decency, and government, by means of
wise laws, and by the influence of religion. What a detestable idea
such people must have given to the natives of the Europeans! They
trade with them, the worst of people are permitted to do that which
none but persons of the best characters should be employed in. They
get drunk with them, and often defraud the Indians. Their avarice,
removed from the eyes of their superiors, knows no bounds; and aided
by the 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:
respectable for their industry, their happy independence, the great
share of freedom they possess, the good regulation of their
families, and for extending the trade and the dominion of our mother
country.
Europe contains hardly any other distinctions but lords and tenants;
this fair country alone is settled by freeholders, the possessors of
the soil they cultivate, members of the government they obey, and
the framers of their own laws, by means of their representatives.
This is a thought which you have taught me to cherish; our
difference from Europe, far from diminishing, rather adds to our
usefulness and consequence as men and subjects. Had our forefathers
remained there, they would only have crowded it, and perhaps
prolonged those convulsions which had shook it so long. Every
industrious European who transports himself here, may be compared to
a sprout growing at the foot of a great tree; it enjoys and draws
but a little portion of sap; wrench it from the parent roots,
transplant it, and it will become a tree bearing fruit also.
Colonists are therefore entitled to the consideration due to the
most useful subjects; a hundred families barely existing in some
parts of Scotland, will here in six years, cause an annual
exportation of 10,000 bushels of wheat: 100 bushels being but a
common quantity for an industrious family to sell, if they cultivate
good land. It is here then that the idle may be employed, the
useless become useful, and the poor become rich; but by riches I do
not mean gold and silver, we have but little of those metals; I mean
a better sort of wealth, cleared lands, cattle, good houses, good
clothes, and an increase of people to enjoy them.
There is no wonder that this country has so many charms, and
presents to Europeans so many temptations to remain in it. A
traveller in Europe becomes a stranger as soon as he quits his own
kingdom; but it is otherwise here. We know, properly speaking, no
strangers; this is every person's country; the variety of our soils,
situations, climates, governments, and produce, hath something which
must please everybody. No sooner does an European arrive, no matter
of what condition, than his eyes are opened upon the fair prospect;
he hears his language spoke, he retraces many of his own country
manners, he perpetually hears the names of families and towns with
which he is acquainted; he sees happiness and prosperity in all
places disseminated; he meets with hospitality, kindness, and plenty
everywhere; he beholds hardly any poor, he seldom hears of
punishments and executions; and he wonders at the elegance of our
towns, those miracles of industry and freedom. He cannot admire
enough our rural districts, our convenient roads, good taverns, and
our many accommodations; he involuntarily loves a country where
everything is so lovely. When in England, he was a mere Englishman;
here he stands on a larger portion of the globe, not less than its
fourth part, and may see the productions of the north, in iron and
naval stores; the provisions of Ireland, the grain of Egypt, the
indigo, the rice of China. He does not find, as in Europe, a crowded
society, where every place is over-stocked; he does not feel that
perpetual collision of parties, that difficulty of beginning, that
contention which oversets so many. There is room for everybody in
America; has he any particular talent, or industry? he exerts it in
order to procure a livelihood, and it succeeds. Is he a merchant?
the avenues of trade are infinite; is he eminent in any respect? he
will be employed and respected. Does he love a country life?
pleasant farms present themselves; he may purchase what he wants,
and thereby become an American farmer. 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. Does he want uncultivated lands? thousands of acres present
themselves, which he may purchase cheap. Whatever be his talents or
inclinations, if they are moderate, he may satisfy them. I do not
mean that every one who comes will grow rich in a little time; no,
but he may procure an easy, decent maintenance, by his industry.
Instead of starving he will be fed, instead of being idle he will
have employment; and these are riches enough for such men as come
over here. The rich stay in Europe, it is only the middling and the
poor that emigrate. Would you wish to travel in independent
idleness, from north to south, you will find easy access, and the
most cheerful reception at every house; society without ostentation,
good cheer without pride, and every decent diversion which the
country affords, with little expense. It is no wonder that the
European who has lived here a few years, is desirous to remain;
Europe with all its pomp, is not to be compared to this continent,
for men of middle stations, or labourers.
An European, when he first arrives, seems limited in his intentions,
as well as in his views; but he very suddenly alters his scale; two
hundred miles formerly appeared a very great distance, it is now but
a trifle; he no sooner breathes our air than he forms schemes, and
embarks in designs he never would have thought of in his own
country. There the plenitude of society confines many useful ideas,
and often extinguishes the most laudable schemes which here ripen
into maturity. Thus Europeans become Americans.
But how is this accomplished in that crowd of low, indigent people,
who flock here every year from all parts of Europe? I will tell you;
they no sooner arrive than they immediately feel the good effects of
that plenty of provisions we possess: they fare on our best food,
and they are kindly entertained; their talents, character, and
peculiar industry are immediately inquired into; they find
countrymen everywhere disseminated, let them come from whatever part
of Europe. Let me select one as an epitome of the rest; he is hired,
he goes to work, and works moderately; instead of being employed by
a haughty person, he finds himself with his equal, placed at the
substantial table of the farmer, or else at an inferior one as good;
his wages are high, his bed is not like that bed of sorrow on which
he used to lie: if he behaves with propriety, and is faithful, he is
caressed, and becomes as it were a member of the family. He begins
to feel the effects of a sort of resurrection; hitherto he had not
lived, but simply vegetated; he now feels himself a man, because he
is treated as such; the laws of his own country had overlooked him
in his insignificancy; the laws of this cover him with their mantle.
Judge what an alteration there must arise in the mind and thoughts
of this man; he begins to forget his former servitude and
dependence, his heart involuntarily swells and glows; this first
swell inspires him with those new thoughts which constitute an
American. What love can he entertain for a country where his
existence was a burthen to him; if he is a generous good man, the
love of this new adoptive parent will sink deep into his heart. He
looks around, and sees many a prosperous person, who but a few years
before was as poor as himself. This encourages him much, he begins
to form some little scheme, the first, alas, he ever formed in his
life. If he is wise he thus spends two or three years, in which time
he acquires knowledge, the use of tools, the modes of working the
lands, felling trees, etc. This prepares the foundation of a good
name, the most useful acquisition he can make. He is encouraged, he
has gained friends; he is advised and directed, he feels bold, he
purchases some land; he gives all the money he has brought over, as
well as what he has earned, and trusts to the God of harvests for
the discharge of the rest. His good name procures him credit. He is
now possessed of the deed, conveying to him and his posterity the
fee simple and absolute property of two hundred acres of land,
situated on such a river. What an epocha in this man's life! He is
become a freeholder, from perhaps a German boor--he is now an
American, a Pennsylvanian, an English subject. He is naturalised,
his name is enrolled with those of the other citizens of the
province. Instead of being a vagrant, he has a place of residence;
he is called the inhabitant of such a county, or of such a district,
and for the first time in his life counts for something; for
hitherto he has been a cypher. I only repeat what I have heard many
say, and no wonder their hearts should glow, and be agitated with a
multitude of feelings, not easy to describe. From nothing to start
into being; from a servant to the rank of a master; from being the
slave of some despotic prince, to become a free man, invested with
lands, to which every municipal blessing is annexed! What a change
indeed! It is in consequence of that change that he becomes an
American. This great metamorphosis has a double effect, it
extinguishes all his European prejudices, he forgets that mechanism
of subordination, that servility of disposition which poverty had
taught him; and sometimes he is apt to forget too much, often
passing from one extreme to the other. If he is a good man, he forms
schemes of future prosperity, he proposes to educate his children
better than he has been educated himself; he thinks of future modes
of conduct, feels an ardour to labour he never felt before. Pride
steps in and leads him to everything that the laws do not forbid: he
respects them; with a heart-felt gratitude he looks toward the east,
toward that insular government from whose wisdom all his new
felicity is derived, and under whose wings and protection he now
lives. These reflections constitute him the good man and the good
subject. Ye poor Europeans, ye, who sweat, and work for the great--
ye, who are obliged to give so many sheaves to the church, so many
to your lords, so many to your government, and have hardly any left
for yourselves--ye, who are held in less estimation than favourite
hunters or useless lap-dogs--ye, who only breathe the air of nature,
because it cannot be withheld from you; it is here that ye can
conceive the possibility of those feelings I have been describing;
it is here the laws of naturalisation invite every one to partake of
our great labours and felicity, to till unrented, untaxed lands!
Many, corrupted beyond the power of amendment, have brought with
them all their vices, and disregarding the advantages held to them,
have gone on in their former career of iniquity, until they have
been overtaken and punished by our laws. It is not every emigrant
who succeeds; no, it is only the sober, the honest, and industrious:
happy those to whom this transition has served as a powerful spur to
labour, to prosperity, and to the good establishment of children,
born in the days of their poverty; and who had no other portion to
expect but the rags of their parents, had it not been for their
happy emigration. Others again, have been led astray by this
enchanting scene; their new pride, instead of leading them to the
fields, has kept them in idleness; the idea of possessing lands is
all that satisfies them--though surrounded with fertility, they have
mouldered away their time in inactivity, misinformed husbandry, and
ineffectual endeavours. How much wiser, in general, the honest
Germans than almost all other Europeans; they hire themselves to
some of their wealthy landsmen, and in that apprenticeship learn
everything that is necessary. They attentively consider the
prosperous industry of others, which imprints in their minds a
strong desire of possessing the same advantages. This forcible idea
never quits them, they launch forth, and by dint of sobriety, rigid
parsimony, and the most persevering industry, they commonly succeed.
Their astonishment at their first arrival from Germany is very
great--it is to them a dream; the contrast must be powerful indeed;
they observe their countrymen flourishing in every place; they
travel through whole counties where not a word of English is spoken;
and in the names and the language of the people, they retrace
Germany. They have been an useful acquisition to this continent, and
to Pennsylvania in particular; to them it owes some share of its
prosperity: to their mechanical knowledge and patience it owes the
finest mills in all America, the best teams of horses, and many
other advantages. The recollection of their former poverty and
slavery never quits them as long as they live.
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