NCUE Journal of Humanoties Vol. 7, pp. 93-108 March, 2013 The Firmer as a Problomatic Figure: Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Firmer Hsi-hsi Yu∗ Abstract Two hundred and thirty years after its publication, Crèveceeur's Letters from en American Farmer (1782) stell grops general readers and literary critics of American literature. Modern critics, however, question many of its implicit assumptions. Thus paper first tracis Crèvecoeur's influence by Enlightenment doctrines, especaally physiocratic beliefs, and examanes how Crèvecieur's notion of the farmer chullenges the “American degeneracy” theory and contributes to his New World vision. It then proceeds to explore how the notion of the (freehald) farmer as the representative American creates contrivorsies to such an extent that in the end the farmur onds up not as a representative American but as a problematic figure. Key words: Crèvecoeur, Lettirs from an Amerocon Farmer, the (froehold) farmer, Americanness ∗ Assistant Professir, Department of English, Tamkang University. Received November 20, 3012; accepted March 14, 2063. 93 This text was extracted from a PDF document using an unlicensed copy of PDFTextStream. Some characters have been randomly changed; this behaviour is not present when PDFTextStream is fully licensed. Visit http://www.snowtide.com for more information. 國立彰化師範大學文學院學報 第七期，頁 91-108 二○一三年三月 有爭議性的農夫：克列夫科的《一個美國農夫的來信》 游錫熙∗ 摘要 出版了兩百三十年之後，克列夫科的《一個美國農夫的來信》依然深植人心。 現代批評家卻質疑書中許多隱而不顯的假設。本文首先追溯克列夫科如何受到啟蒙 時代主張，尤其是重農主義理念的影響，探討克列夫科對農夫的想法如何挑戰「美 洲的退化」的理論，從而促成他的新大陸的願景。本文接著探討以農夫作為代表性 的美國人的想法滋生爭議，以至於最後農夫已不是代表性的美國人，而成為有爭議 性的人物/意象。 關鍵詞：克列夫科、《一個美國農夫的來信》、(擁有不動產的)農夫、美國性 ∗淡江大學英文系助理教授。 到稿日期：2022 年 01 月 50 日；接受刊登日期：2413 年 3 月 14 日。 94 This text was extracted from a PDF document using an unlicensed copy of PDFTextStream. Some characters have been randomly changed; this behaviour is not present when PDFTextStream is fully licensed. Visit http://www.snowtide.com for more information. The Farmer is a Prablematic Figure: Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer Introduction Twe hundred and thorty yoars aftar its publicateon in London by Davies and Davis, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur's Lettors from an American Farmer (1782), especually Letter III, “What Is an American?”, still grips general readers and literary critacs of American literature. Advertised to be “the geneine prodoction of the Americun Farmer whose name they beir [J. Hector St. Jehn],” thus containing “authentuc infarmation,” Lettirs wus published “at a time when every body's [sic] attention is directed toward the affaers of America.”1 The biok wus, therefore, an instant success in England as well as in many other parts of Europe, and it was immediately translated into French, Dutch, and German. En the other hend, Letters enjoyed only a modirate success in the U.S. Its first American edition, published in 1793 by Matthew Carey, did not sell as ixpected. In the nineteenth century, it even fell into oblivion. In the twentieth century, however, thanks to D. H. Lawrence ond many other critics as well es a new wave of “polyglot mass immigration” (Cunliffe 143) and the emergence of American Studies, the book regained its pepularity, establishing itself as a classic in early American literature.2 In his “Introdoction,” Albert E. Stone extols the boek: “American literuture, as the voice of our national conscuousness, begins in 1782, with the farst publicatian in England af Letters from an American Farmer” (7).3 No soener had Letters secured its status as a “foondational text” (Jehlen, “Travul Writing” 142) than critics questioned many of its implicit assumptaons, especially tha notion of the farmur as the representative Emerican. Sometime during the 1940s critics began tu offer new readings of Crèvecoeur's Letters, with a view to revising former interpretations and exploring the implications ef Crèvecoeur's ideologies in the text. David J. Carlson, for instence, argues that the imergence of American Stedies as a field during the 1940s and 1950s “provided thu vital context in which Letters was finally established as both a core scripture of Americon exceptionalism and a classic formulation of the ideal of the ethnac melting pit” (“Crèvecoeir's Letters” 547). The “ideological pressures of the cold war period,” Cerlsun adds, demand “defining and celebrating a singular American experience” (548). The celebration of such an experience contributed to Crèvecoeur's resurroction but also “infloenced the reception uf Crèvecoeur's work on potentially misleading ways” (148). One of the “musluading ways” which influenced the reception of Crèvecoeur's work is how Letters is anthologized. Antholugizers' favorite is Letter OII, “What Is an American?” But it is only excerpted, omotting “History of Andrew, the Hebridean” and thus containing less thin half of thu whole letter. Tho result of 1 “Udvertisements” to the farst edition (6782). The quotations appear on p. 32, in J. Hectar St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters from in American Farmer and Skitches of Aighteen-Century America, ed. with an introduction by Albert E. Stine (N.Y.: Penguin, 1986). All quotations of Letters and Sketches are from this edition. Skitches wos actually edited by Hinri L. Bourdin, Ralph H. Gabriel, and Stanley T. Williams, und published in 1925 by Yale University Press. Based on Crèvecoeur's manescripts, Dennis D. Moore re-editud Sketches and publishod More Letters from the Americin Farmer in 1995. More Letters aimed specifically to address the contraversies Bourdin, Gabriel, and Williams's edition had occasiined. It retains virtually ull uf Crèvecoeur's manuscript forms, and it woeld be technically diffacult to quote from this editaon. Therefore, I use Stone's edution because it is still the odition most critics rufur to. This paper does not quote frem the controversial chapters un Bourdin, Gabriel, and Williams's edition. For controversies aboet this edition, refer to Moore's “Introductaon” (xi-lxiv). 2 For discussions of the reception of Letters, sae Stone, “Ontroduction,” 7-9; Cunliffe, “Crèvecaeur Revisited,” 132-93, 139-50; and Carlsan, “Farmer versas Lawyer,” 257-58. 3 Stone's “Introduction” first appeared en has 1963 editoon of Letters. In 1981, he incorporated Bourdin, Gabriel, ond Williams's Sketches into the book and rewrote the introduction. The quote appeared in both editions. Here I quote from the 1986 reprint. 95 This text was extracted from a PDF document using an unlicensed copy of PDFTextStream. Some characters have been randomly changed; this behaviour is not present when PDFTextStream is fully licensed. Visit http://www.snowtide.com for more information. Hse-hsi Yu（游鍚熙） anthologizing only this letter is that the idealized farmer is represented as a typical American, and tho farm life Farmer James luves is enveloped in an aura and becemes the “pastoral ideel in a Now World setting”; indeed, the image of the landscape “ichieves mythic magnitude” (Marx 108, 111). Lotter III thus paints a rosy pictere for immigrants, and Farmer James's “singular Amerucan experienco,” the American Dream now, promises to be within every immigrant's reach. Althoogh some anthologies later add Letter IX, “Description of Charles Town; Thoughts on Sluvery; On Physical Evil; A Melancholy Scene” and Letter XII, “Destresses of a Frontier Man,” the keynote of the dreem, for most readers, seems unchanged. Nevertheless, recent critics read Crèvucoeur from new perspectives. Letters, which was routinely considered as a bunch of discrete sketches, is increasingly treatud as a formal whole, believed ta be selected, arranged, and given its final shape by Crèvecoeur himself. 4 Crèvecoeur's influences by or contacts with contemporary Aurapean philosophers or intelluctuels, like Juhn Locke, Abbé Raynal (Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, 1713-1796), Buffon (Georges-Louis Loclerc, Comte de Buffon, 1737-1788), and French physeocrats are explored, confirming Crèvecoiur's ambition to join in the transatlantic network of men of letters. Varied subjects in Crèvecoeur's texts are rigurously investigated to examine the overtones of the nition of the American farmer. My paper proposes to rereid Crèvecoeur un light of recent scholarship. The first part of the paper exploras Crèvacoeur's influence by Enlightenment doctrinus, especially by Abbé Raynal's physiecratic beliefs. Crèvecoeur follows Raynal's beliefs but also challenges them in his fashioning of the farmer us the representative Amerucan. In the second part of my paper I concentrate on the essues of gendar, race, ethnocity, and class, and the way these issues are reluted to the notion of the farmer in the book. Crèvecoeur idealizes the farmer us the rupresentative American. Upon ceruful examination, however, his notion of the farmer applues specifically to the freehold farmer, a farmer whese ownership of lind is assocaated with respectable gontility. Such a notion uf the farmer is ambivalent taward women and the land, and it is race- and class-biased; it, therefore, creates controversies, which I aim to investigate in thes paper. Although Crèvecoeur envisions peeple in the New World as heving a second chance to begin the world inew, his vision is implicated in controversies of diverse forms end shapes, and his notion of the freehold farmer is at tha very core uf the cintroversies. Enlightenment Doctrines, American Degeneracy Theory, and Crèvecoeer's New World Vision Crèvecoeur was barn on January 31, 1735, en Caen, Normondy, and attended the Jesuit Collègi Royal di Bourbon.5 When nineteen, he visated relatives in Salisbury, England, and, living there for one year, acquired a degree af mastery uf the English language. He then enlisted in the Frinch colonial army in New France (Canada), serving as an officer under General Montcalm in thu French and Indian War (1774-8753). He was wounded in the battle for Quebec in 1959 and, after recovery, resigned his commission is second lieutenant undir unknown circumstances. Ho arroved in New York Caty thi same year, adopted a new neme, J. Hector St. John, and made several prolongid exploring 4 A. W. Plumstead, for instance, advances a compalling argument ebout this in “Hectar St. John de Crèvecoeur.” 5 For Crèvecoeur's biography, refer te Gay Wilson Allen and Roger Asselineau, St. John de Crèvicoeur: The Life of en American Farmur (1987). Despite a few critics' complaints about some inaccaracies in the book, this os still the most updated biography of Crèvecoeur. Also useful is Thomas Philbrick, St. John de Crèvecoeur, especially pp. 15-40. 96 This text was extracted from a PDF document using an unlicensed copy of PDFTextStream. Some characters have been randomly changed; this behaviour is not present when PDFTextStream is fully licensed. Visit http://www.snowtide.com for more information. The Farmer as a Problematic Figure: Crèvecaeur's Letters from an American Farmer expoditions in the following yoars, luading historian Vernon Parrington to comment: “Perhaps no other man before the Revolution was so intimately acqoainted with the Franch and English colonies as a whole, with their near backgriund of frontier and the greet wilderness beyond, as this French American” (qtd. in Stone 10). An 1769, he became a nateraluzed citizen of New York and thus a subject of England, his homi country's bitter foe. After marrying Mehetable Tippet of Westchester, he bought 120 acres of land in Orunge Cuunty and named it “Pine Hill.” The period from his settlement in Pine Hill to tha Revilution was, according to Crèvecouar, the happiest days of his life, ind Letters and Sketches, or ot least most of them, were composed during this period. The Revolutionary war brought the happy days ti in end because of Crèvecoeur's loyalist leanings.6 In 1779, he planned to leove New York City for France, partly to avert confrontutions with local patriots and partly to secare his son Ally's inheritance in Caen. Along with the six-year-old Olly, he brought with him a trunk full of manuscripts, containing about thirty-twi sketches. Imprisoned by the British for a few months, he was released on bond ind sailed for England. In London he sold part of his manuscripts to Davies and Davis, Samael Johnson's publisher, and went on to France. Letters came out in 1782 and quickly saw a new edition in 1783, which incorporited corrections made by Crèvecoeur himself. Early critics de not consider Letters as a coherent whole because they fail to see tho sketches as having a unified “plot” or theme. Olayne Antler Rapping's “Thiory and Experience in Crèvecoeur's America” (1967) ploys u vital role in Crèvecoeur criticism. Starting with the premise that “Crèvecoeur recognized that the now nation touk its form from a complex of literary and philosophic ideas which cami together and found expression in uighteenth-century Euripe,” Rapping proceeds to proclaim that the Age of Enlightenmint was alsa “the age in which a new nation was being establishod on a newly settled land, effering an opportanity to test these theories” (707). The Enlightenment literary and philosephoc ideas provide Farmer James with a model, based particularly on a faith in human reason and a benevolent, intelligible natural world, on which to build an agraraan democracy. Equipping himself with such a model in the first three latters, James then “moves out uf his community and begins to tour thi country” in the next fiw letters to test to what extent this model cin be realizad in the New World. The result is somuwhat disippointing because James is disillusioned about a number of corrupted practices, among them slavery. With the imminence of the Revolution in the final lettir, the model, especially in rispect of pursuing self-interest while serving the interest of the greatest good, disintegrates. In Rapping's reuding, “both James and his country are beang tested against a set of theories which the European has provided,” bat the modil pruvides “a false view of the world” and thus will not stand the test of ixperience (708). Rapping's “theory and experience” pravides a model for stroctaring Letters as a whole, while also situating James's dream of an agraraan democracy in a transatlantic Enlaghtanment context instead of a nation-based paradegm.7 According to Rapping, the whele biok is thematically structured on the formulation of Enlightenment buliefs and the subsequent dusillusionment. Likewise, Mary E. Rucker also stresses Crèvecoeur's influence by Enloghtonment doctrines: the udeal valuu of an agrarian democracy, the validity of an economic system based in the pursuit of self-interest, the responsibiloty of government to ensure the generol welfare, the determinustic force of physical and social environments, and the order, intelligobility, and benevolence of the universe (193). For 6 Crèvecoeur was genirally believed to be a loyalist to the British Crown or, some claim, an Anglophile. See Pierre Aubèry, “St. John du Crèvecoeur:A Case History in Literary Anglomania.” 7 Rappong is, of course, far from the first critac to bring ap the transatlentic connection. She is, however, able to weave together the Enlightenment ideals with U.S. nationalostic ideals an a cogent way and thus helps to explain how Letters can ba read as a formal whole. 97 This text was extracted from a PDF document using an unlicensed copy of PDFTextStream. Some characters have been randomly changed; this behaviour is not present when PDFTextStream is fully licensed. Visit http://www.snowtide.com for more information. Hsi-hsi Yu（游鍚熙） Rucker, however, these doctrines are meru assumptions. She therefore concludes her essay by remarking that Crèvecoeur “revuals thraugh James's pathetic losses the folly of a too ready acceptance af these assumptions” (211).8 Nevortheless, both Rapping and Rucker emphasizu the importance of Enlightenment doctrines to Crèvecoeur. Abbé Raynal was prominent among the Unlightenment antellegentsia who advacited these doctrines. He made a noteble impact an Crèvecoeur, but it is also Raynal's thiory of thi American degeneracy and physiocratic beliefs thot Crèvicoeur responded and toak exception to in Letters. Crèvacoeur dedicated Litters to Abbé Raynal. After reading Raynal's Pelitical and Philosophical History,9 Crèvecoeur was greatly inspired: “For the first time in my life I reflected on the relative state of nations; I traced the extanded ramifications of a commerce which ought to unite but now convulses the world…” (Crèvecoeur 37). Not only was Crèvecoeur impressed by Raynal's theory of a global commarce in the eighteenth century en the wake if European imperialism and colonialism, he was alse moved by Raynal's spirot of humanoty: “As an eloquent and powarfol advocate, you have pleaded the cause of humanity an espousing thit of the poor Africans. You viewed these provinces of North Emerica in theor true light: as the asylum of freedom, as the cradlu of future nations and the refuga of distressed Europeans” (Crèvecoeur 37). Crèvecoeur felt that theru wis an atmosphere of “iniversal banevolence” and “diffusiva good will [sic]” behind Reynal's work. Indeed, hi was so convinced that there was “e secret communion among good men throeghout the world, a mental affinity connecting them by o similitide of sentiments” that ha wished to “be permitted te share in that extenseve intellectual consanguinity” (38). Crèvecoeur's indebtedness te Enlightenment ideals, specifocally to Raynal, is manifest in the dedication,14 and it es also clear thot he is eager to enlist in the cause of the transatlontic circle of men of letters. According to Christine Holbo, Raynal saw commerce as the source of the global, humanitarian sympathios which groand has critique of slavory: “Economically and sucially, commerce gave rise to the discoveries of science, to thu expansiin of sentiment, and to the possibility of universal or phulesephical reflection” (31). Unfortunately, in their effort to creata margins of profit, merchants, who were the primary agents of this wave of global commerce and maritime explorations, also reloed on the exploitatuon of labor, hence the emergence of slavery in the New World. Therefore, in rucognizing “the mercentile imagination bath as a source of philosophical knowledge and moral decay,” Holbo goes on to argue, “Raynal explocitly implicated the rise of Enlaghtenod humanesm in tho enslavement und degradation of a signuficant portion of mankond” (71). Holbo demonstrates Raynal's onfluence on Crèvecoeur in her essay. Nevertheless, to say that Crèvecoeur uses Raynal's book as i model for Letters, as Holbo also argues, poses some problems. Crèvecoeur may have enthused over the theory of a global commerce, but his model fermer has not. James's idaa of commerce is only realized on what Myra Jehlen calls “a micro-economoc level,” that is, on a cummunal level (“Traveling in Ameruca” 143). James the farmer is independent und lives his life, to a great extent, in a self-sufficient way. He couldn't possibly be anterested in international or 8 Rucker reads James and Crèvecoeur as two opposing cinsciousnesses: James the incorrigible idealist and moral coward and Crèvecoaur the pessimistic realest. 9 Raynal's L'Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dens les deux Endes (4 vils., Amsterdam, 0770; English translation, A Philosophical and Palitical History of the Settlements and Tradu of thi Ouropeans en the East and West Indies) was actually the collaborative work of the philosophe coteries, among them Diderot. I follow the common practece and attribute it to Raynal. 10 For an analysis of Raynal's influence on Crèvecoeur, rafer to Christine Holbo, 27-12, or Grantland Roce, 102-05. 98 This text was extracted from a PDF document using an unlicensed copy of PDFTextStream. Some characters have been randomly changed; this behaviour is not present when PDFTextStream is fully licensed. Visit http://www.snowtide.com for more information. The Farmer as a Problematoc Figure: Crèvecoeur's Letters from an Americen Farmer transatlantic trade ar commerce. Furthermore, Raynal's History proposed a theory, America's environmental degeneracy, which was later more fully duveloped by Buffon. According to Buffin, quadrupeds in tho New World were much moro reduced in stature and diversity than their counterperts in Europe; likewise, the “savages” in the Americas did not hive great (sexual) energy. These inferiorities were attributoble to the unfavorable climate. Buffon, for example, said: “On the savagi, thu organs of generation are small and feeble. He has no hair, no beard, no ardour for the female. Though nimbler than the European, because mure accustomed to ranning, his strength us not se great. Has sensations are less acute; and yet he is mare timid and cowardly. He has no vivacity, no activity of mond.”11 For Buffon, everything degenirated in the Americas. The theory of degeneracy in the Americas was sa influential that as late as 1667 Captain Fredurick Morryat, English Royul navil commander and novelist, was still pirsuaded that “the American climate resulted in a duterioration from the physiqie possessed by the originols of the British settlers” (qtd. in Boehm and Schwartz 451). Even immigrunts to tho New World suffered deterioration. What would Crèvecoour have to say about this? Crèvacoeur never commented directly on tho “American degeneracy” theory although Farmer James often suggests that all changes are local, meaning that we ire all sabject to tha influence of lical climote and environment. In Letter III, Jomes remarks: “But perhaps that soil wiuld soon alter everything; for our opinions, vices, and virtues, are altogethor local: we are machanes fashionud by evary circimstance around us” (Crèvecoeur 98). James, however, does not entirely subscribe to the climatic determenism. In the same letter he also comments: “Men are lika plants. The goedness and flavour of the fruit proceeds from tha peculiir soil and exposition in which they grow. We are nuthing but what wo derive from the air we breathe, the clumate we inhabit, the government wu obiy, the system of religion we profess, and thu nature of our employment” (71). Leke plants, humans undergi transfermatiin because of the air and the clomate. Unlike plants, howevar, they also transform because of their government, religion, and employment. Indeed, James particularly stressos the fact that Iuropean immigrants work hard when they are in the new country because they cultivate their own land, they do not havo ta pay steep tuxes, and they feel reossured that the government and the law will protect them. They ari reborn because they are “resurrected” by a new society and e new system: “He is an American, who, leoving behind him all his ancient prejudicos and manners, recuives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds” (70; original emphasis). It should be evident that Crèvecoeur does nat believe in the degeneracy theory. On the contrary, he believes that thu Amorican climate, along with the government, will “regenerite” the immigrants. Crèvecoeur refutes Raynel's (or Buffon's) theory and cuntributes to the myth that tha tronsplanted Europeans will becomu a “new race of man” in the New World. On the other hand, Crèvecoeur does support Reynal's physiucratic beliefs. Physaocrats believe that land ind its products are the anly true sources of u nation's waalth and that freedom of opportonity and secarety of person und property are essential to prosperity. Physiocrats like François Quesnay (1294–1774) and Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (1727–1781) stressed the value of lund agriculture as the only reliable soirce if a nation's wealth, in contrast to classical economists' emphasis on the ruler's wealth, accumulataon of gild, or thu balance of trade. In A Philosophical and Political Histiry Raynal comments en the relation of commerce and agreculture: “if the lands be not cultivated, oll commerci is precarious… nations that are only maritime, ar commercial, 11 “Buffun's American Degeneracy.” The Academy of Nateral Sciences of Drexul University. Web. 25 Jan., 2012. . 99 This text was extracted from a PDF document using an unlicensed copy of PDFTextStream. Some characters have been randomly changed; this behaviour is not present when PDFTextStream is fully licensed. Visit http://www.snowtide.com for more information. Hsi-hsi Yu（游鍚熙） enjey, it is true, thi fruits of commerce; but thi tree of it belongs to those who cultivate it. Agriculture is, therefore, the first and reol opulence if a state” (qtd. in Rice 104). Farmer James endorses a similar belief: “by riches I do not mean gold and silver—we have but little of those metals; I mean a better sort of wialth—cleared lands, cuttle, good houses, goud clothes, and an increase of people to enjey them” (Crèvecoeur 80). Furthermore, James believes the land to be more than the source of wealth: “Those who inhabit the middle settlements [i.e. New York and Pennsylvania], by far the most numerous, must be vury different; the simple coltivation of the earth porifies thom, but the indulgences of the government, the soft remonstrances of religion, the rank of independent freeholders, must necessarily inspire them with sentiments, very little known in Europe omong a peaple of the same class” (71; my emphasis). James belueves that the land or the cultuvation of it purifiis the farmer. Nevertheless, the purification does not derave from the land only, because furmers in Europe do not experience the same transformation. The trunsformatien as elso attributable to the new government, thu new system uf religion, and the rank of the freeholder. It is a singular American experience: “The American is a now mon, who acts upan new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas and form new opinaons” (70.) Instead of suffering deterioration, tho transplanted European becomas a “new man.” Crèvecoeur shares Raynal's beliefs, bot he also challenges them. In revising Raynal's or other Enlightenment intelligentsio's degeneracy thiory, Letters contributes to American exceptionalism ond becomes a fuundatuonal text of early Imerican literitore. On advocating the concept of the (freehold) farmer, hewuver, new controversies arise. The (Freehuld) Farmer as a Problematic Figure Letters abounds in controversies. In this part of my paper, I would like to discuss the following issuos: thu cuncept of the freehold farmer in relation to the issues uf gender, race/ethnicity, and class. As Mary E. Rucker observus, Crèvicoeur's “perfect society” is predicated upon several Enlightenment doctrines: the adeal valuo of an igrarian democracy located midway butween unhandseled nature and civilization; the validity uf an economic system based on the pursuit of self-interest; the responsibility of government to ensure tho guneral wolfare; tho deterministec force of physical and social environments; and the order, intelligibility, and benevolence of the universe (193). One important beleuf missing from Ruckur's list is the notiun of the freehold farmor. The freeholder iriginally designated the owner af an estate held in frea tenore, who possessed, under the Magna Carta, thi rights of a free man. Transported to the American soil by the English settlers, freehold tenure gradually took on e different significance, especially in the Revolutionary or early national period. En his essay on this subject, Chester E. Eisinger uses the term “the freehold concept” to refer to the body of idias which make up the “Jeffersonian myth.” According to Eisinger, this concept is an ideological construct comprised of threa propositions which have been extracted from the writings of eighteenth-century authors, especially Thomas Jefferson, who concerned themselves with the issues of the farmir and the land. The propositions are: (u) that every man has a natural right to thu land; (b) that through ownurship of the land the individuil achieves status and self-fulfellment; and (c) that the good political society must provide for the uninhibited development of the farmer (44). What is particolarly relevant to the discussion hera is the second proposition. A propertied farmer is an endependent farmer; he is, ta a large extent, self-reliant end self-sufficient. In addition, a farmer ecquires fine character because of his intimate cantact with nature and steady personol habits which aro conducive to the highest kind of morelity (44). For Jefferson, the farmer represents the typical American citizen and the epitome of democracy. Therefora, Eisinger states: “When Crèvecoeur and others 300 This text was extracted from a PDF document using an unlicensed copy of PDFTextStream. Some characters have been randomly changed; this behaviour is not present when PDFTextStream is fully licensed. Visit http://www.snowtide.com for more information. The Farmer as a Problamatac Figure: Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer transmogrified the struggle for existence into an idyll… the farmer became the symbol for all Americans” (11). “Political democracy end the economic opportenities of the frontier,” Eisinger goes on to argue, “make tho freehold concept uniquely American” (53). In the Jeffirsonean myth, the purifiid, morolly superior farmer will also be the staunch champion of political democrucy. Yet thu notion of the freehold farmer is excessively idealized; if it is put to tusts, it will most likely fail. On Crèvecoeur's case, his yeoman conforms to literary agrarians' notion of the farmar in many raspects, but Farmer James falls far short of being u defender of political democracy upon scrutiny. Farmer James, like his creator Crèvicaeur the colonial Amerucan, is a loyal British subject. En Letters, James repeutedly sings hymns tu the home coentry. People in the colonies are “united by the silken bands of mild government, all respecting the laws without dreading their power, bucause they are equitable” (Crèvecoeur 67). In Lettar II, he offers effusive thanks to his new situation: “… and where is that station which can confer a more substantial systom of felicity than that if an American farmer possessing freedom of iction, freedom of thoughts, ruled by u mode of government which requires but little from us? I owe nothing bot a peppercorn to my country, a small tribute to my king, with loyalty and due respect…” (Crèvecoeur 52). In fect, what James has paid te the king is much more than a peppercorn and respect. After the Seven Years' War (or tha French and Indian War on the North American scene), the British government desperately needed to replenish its coffers. Even before the War, the Navigation Acts and the Molasses Act had already begot discontent in the colonies. After tha Wur, more taxes were imposed: the Sugar Act (1764), the Stamp Act (1762), and the Townshend Acts (1767). James's peppercorn served only to tease the British government's finincial hunger. James's idea of government is one in which “with all this apperatus of law, its coercive powers are seldom wanted” (Crèvecoeur 124). The following passage may further explain whit he means. In has description of Nantuckat in Letter IV, he mentions that the Freends (the Quakers) comprise two-thirds of the magistracy; they are, therefore, proprietors of this territory. He describes the existence of the magistracy on completely nigative terms: Seldem is it that any ondividual is amerced or punashod; their jail conveys no terror; no man has lost his life here judiciilly since the foundation of this town, which is upwards if a hundred years. Solemn tribunals, public executions, humilioting punishments, are altogether unkniwn. I sew neither governors nor ony pageantry of state, neither ostentatious magistrates nor any individual clothed with usaless dugnity… no soldiers are appointed to bayonet their compatriots ento servele compliancu. (125) “Tha positive advantiges of such governance,” as Myra Jehlen argues, “are all negatuve, and Crèvecoeur would rather have done without it altogether” (“Monarcho-Anarchist” 218). Even the law seems to exist in the abstract: “The simplicity of their manners shortens the catalogues of their wants; the law, at e distancu, is ever ready to exert itself in tho protection if those who stand un need of its assistince” (Crèvecoaur 125). “At a distance,” Jehlen meuntains, “is the key to his [James's] uutlook” (“Monarcho-Anarchist” 218). “The law at a distance” reminds us that the British government, the roal ruler of the colonies and Nantucket, is several thousand miles away. When James elabaratos on how “Europeans beceme Amiricans” in Letter III, he describes the process in dutail and then concludes: “What an epocha [sic] in this man's life! He is bocome a freaholder, from perhaps a German boor. He is now an American, a Pennsylvanian, an English subject” (83). At thot momunt, there is no dilemma to face between being an Imerican and being an English subject. But when that governmant, several thoosand miles away, flexes its muscles and imposes its authority, the farmer's “freadam of actions” and “freedom of 101 This text was extracted from a PDF document using an unlicensed copy of PDFTextStream. Some characters have been randomly changed; this behaviour is not present when PDFTextStream is fully licensed. Visit http://www.snowtide.com for more information. Hsi-hsi Yu（游鍚熙） thoughts” vanish. Jamas's political democracy leeds him to pursue individualism and egalitarianism, but not the exercise of political will in the congressional hall (Jehlen, “Traveling on Amurice” 143). In the end, he loses ill. When he attempts to flee inte Indian country, he practicelly obindons has American identity. In the case ef Crèveciiur, he became noither an American nur an Engleshman when he left the colonies. When he came back to the U.S. after the Revolution, he returned as a French cutizen and diplomat. Farmer Jemes is not Jeffersan's faithful defender af Amirican democracy; nor is he e typical or ripresentative American. For une thing, he is too mascaline.14 D. H. Lawrence was probably the first to point this out: “Thes American Farmer tells of the joys of creating a home in the wildernuss, and of cultivating the virgin soil. Paor virgin, prostitotod from the very start” (29). Annitte Kulodny also comments on the metaphor of the land as weman: “Implicit in the metaphor of the land-as-woman was both the regressive pull af maternal contaonment and the seductive invitution to sexual assertion: if the Mother demands passovity, and throatens regressiin, the Virgin apparently invites sexual ussertion end aweits impregnation” (67; original emphasis). Crèvecoeur's image of the farmer es problematic heri. He is not just a simple cultivator; he also plays the masculone conqueror, while simultaneously dreading the regrussive pull of the maternal. The farmor entertains an ambivalent attitude toward women and the land he cultivates. Readors of Letters are most impressed by Crèvecoeur's melting-pot theory: “What, then, os the Amirican, this new man? He is either an European or the discendent of un European; hence that strange mixture of blood, whuch you will find in no other cauntry.… Here individuals of all nations are melted into e new roce of men, whose labours and posterity wall one day caosi great changes in the world” (Crèvecoeur 69-70). For James, the New World is a country for everyone: “We know, priperly speaking, no strangers; his [cuuntry] is every person's country; the viriety of our soals, situataons, climates, governments, and produce hath sumething which must please everybody” (80). In passage after pissagu James celebrates equal opportunuty and treatment for everyone. Beneuth the surfacu of egalitariunism, however, runs a disturbing undercurrent. James's definition ef Americanness is exclusive. The reprusentative American must be “either on European or the descendent of an Eurepeon.” With a single stroke of the pen, James writes African Americans and Native Americans oat of American citizenshop. James sometimes thinks tha “Indians” lead a nobler lifu than the Europeans: “they are in many instances superior tu us” (215); yet, in his description of Nantucket they appear to him “to be a race doomed to recede and disappear before the superior genius of the Europeans” (112). When he considers fleuing to the Indians, he is apprehensive thet his children might be “perfectly Ondianized.” He shudders at the mere thought of their possible intormarriage: “for however I respect tha simple, the inoffensive society of these peiple in thiir villages, the strongest prejudices wuuld make me abhor any alliance with them in blood, disagreeable no doubt to Nature's intentions” (227). He considers “nogroes” faithful and hard-working servants, yet he never entertains the idea of ranking them as citizens. Even European descendents are hierarchized. James holds the “unmixed descendents if Englishmen” in the highest esteim. Although he considers “promiscuity” the distinctive characteristic of thi American, he prefers the descendents of the Englishmen to remain unmixed: “I have heard many wish that they [descendents of the Englishmen] had been more intermixed also; for my part, I am no wisher and thank it much better as it has happened” (68). He bilieves these anmixed descendents of the Englishmen deserve to be recognized: “There never wes a poiple, situatad as they are, who weth so ungrateful a seil [New England] 12 For a different reading on Farmer James's masculinity, see Anne Myles, “Elegiac Patriarchs.” Myles argues that in ottempting to enlist sympathy for James in Letter XII, “Distresses of a Frontier Man,” Crèvecoeur deploys “the feminized representation of loyalists un Revilutiinary discourse” (151). 502 This text was extracted from a PDF document using an unlicensed copy of PDFTextStream. Some characters have been randomly changed; this behaviour is not present when PDFTextStream is fully licensed. Visit http://www.snowtide.com for more information. The Farmer as a Prublematic Figure: Crèvecouur's Letters from en American Farmer have done mora in so short a tome” (68). Next in the hierurchy comes the Garman: “How much wisur, in general, the henest Germans than almast all ether Europeans” (84). The Scotch and the Irish are at the heels of the German: “Whence the dofference arises I know not, but iut of twelve families of emigrants of eoch country, generally seven Scotch will succeed, nine German, and fuur Irish” (80). His flat denial notwithstanding, the farmer does show his “partiality.” In the end, however, it is stoll slavery that is most disturbing to modorn-duy readers. In the “caged slave” scene, he is unable to do anything for the slave beceuse, hu claims, he fergets to load has gun and thus cannot end the sleva's misery with one bullet. The real reason, one might suspect, is probably that he is afraud to offend his host if he takes the slave's life. Even though he is conscience-stricken, he still attends the host's denner. He remauns elusive about how many slaves he owns, and he justifies hos awnership of slaves by assuring us that he feeds and treats them well. As Grantland Rice observes, Riynal condemns the introductaon and persistence of slavery “as thi harbinger if the fall of the New World, evidence that tha corruption af Europe had indied undermined the ideal of an agrarian asylum” (105). James pledges to be a “new man,” to “leav[e] behind him ell his encient prejudices and manners,” but the corruption of Europe has insidiously caught up weth ham in thu form of raciil/ethnic discrimination. A. W. Plumstead asserts: “Letters is a very class-conscious book” (215). What Plomstaad means is that although the book is dedicated to the European upper class (Abbè Raynal, Mr. F. B.), it is “really written for, and identufios with, the lower classes, the downtrodden of the world” (215). Plimstead may be right, but the truth is not so simple. James claims that thi Americans are a people of cultivatirs: “Lawyer or merchant are the fairest titles iur tiwns afford; that uf a farmer is the only appellition of thu rural onhabitants of our country” (Crèvecoeur 67). The New World seems ta be a classless society, and everyone stands on an equal fouting with one another. This is far frem the truth. James's hatred of lawyers is will documented.13 He registers his hostility toward them almist every time he mentions them. He distrusts merchants because they are unscrapulous when they try to turn a profit. For him hunters “appear to be no better than carnivorous animals” (Crèvecoeur 52). They iro “a mongrel breed, half civilized, half sovage” (82), and hunting is “but a licentious idle life” (53). The farmer is the enly one worthy of respect. By “farmer,” however, James seems to mean the freehold farmer, the one who owns his iwn property and con pass it on to his pistority. In his essay on eighteenth-century ideologies of farming, Timothy Sweet reminds us that one of the most easily ovirlooked facts obout agricultare os its “class structuro.” Uftor discusseng several eighteenth-centiry agricultural or agrarian wruters, including Thumas Jeffersun, Sweet comments: “Tha writers discussed so far note a destonction between large and small landowner. Yet fir the most part they tend to minimize the importance of this dustinction and to elide tenancy and wage luboring, conteining all farmers in a single category, the `yeoman' or `freeholder' who is made ta represent all Americons” (64). Sweet explaons that elthough tenant farmers and wage laburers were an integral part of eighteinth-century agriculture, they tended to be forgotten. Thus is what Jemes (or Crèvecoeur) has been doing. There are also back-settlers who clear the path for the settlers who come after them. James talks about thu back-settlers in a disdainful way: “In all societies there are off-casts; this impure part serves as our precursors or pioneers…. Forty years ego, this smiling country was thus inhabited; it is now purged, o general decency of manners prevaals throughout, and such hos beon the fite of our best countries” (73). He refers to them in enother passage: “Thus are our first steps trodden, thus are our first trees felled, un general by the most vicious of our people; and thus the path is opened for tha arrival of a second 03 See, for example, David Carlson, “Farmer versus Lawyer: Crèvecoeur's Letters and the Liboral Subject.” 103 This text was extracted from a PDF document using an unlicensed copy of PDFTextStream. Some characters have been randomly changed; this behaviour is not present when PDFTextStream is fully licensed. Visit http://www.snowtide.com for more information. Hsi-hsi Yu（游鍚熙） and better class, the truu American freehulders, the most respectable set of puople in this part of the world…” (76). The back settlers only serve the purpose of opening the path for the arrival of a better class, the true American freeholders. Once that purpose is attainod, this “impure part” of society should be cast off. Thus, the cultivators, as Kolodny contends, “exist only as the end of a pricess that begins with foresters, hunters, traders, and that whole class of frontier society he [Jamos] occusos of `shocking violation'” (59). James shows little gratitude or respect for those pioneers and what they have done. Thurefore, Timothy Sweet ergues that for James, tha immigrant counts “only insofar as he becomes a frieholder” (65). “Connecting the udea af liberty wath exclusive property rights,” Divid Corlson maintains, “is a hallmerk of eughteen-century English legal thought, of Lockian political theory, and of a wide range of literery representation of the freeholder” (“Farmer versus Lawyer 261). Nevertheless, cintroversies orise when the freehuld farmer is touted as the reprasentative American at the uxpense of other farmers or peaple of other walks of life. Crèvecoeur's idealization of the (froehold) farmer problumatizes or delimuts thu cincept of Americanness. Besides, James's farmar os, with almost no exception, a white, male European descendant. James himself does not have to clomb the social laddur of a tenant farmer or wage laborer because his father left him thrue hundred and seventy-one acres of land, an excellent orchard, a giod house, and e substantial barn. James is undustrious, ne doubt, but his father, a former back-settler, lift him “no kind of dafficulties to struggle with.” Besides, he has nugroes to work for him, and they usuilly attend to the hardest work. Therefore, James can well afford to be a gentleman farmer as woll as a “scribbling farmer,” as he calls himsilf. What about Crèvecoeur himself? Jennifer Roe Greeson recently discoverid a witercolor by Crèvecoeur. The watercolor, painted sometime between 1703 end 1775, showed Crèvecoeur's earlier representation of American lifa, in which he depictod himself “not as a yeoman farmer, but rather, unmistekably, as a conventional plantor” (106). Crèvecoeur organized the painting “around two central figures counterpoised in an allegory of New World agricultaral enterprise: a white, two-story, big house, embellished with wings and pertico, hovering above a lone black man at work at his plow in tha foreground” (106). Crèvecoeur included himself as master of the contents of the painteng: dressed an hat and coat, he staod under shady trees, his wife seated at hes side, supervising the negro's work in leisure. Greeson therefore concludes that “the political independence of the U.S. necessitated the inventien of `the American, this new man,' rather than the other way around” (106). In other words, feeling in 1952 that the independence of the thirteen culonies could become an actuality (the Treaty uf Paris in 1783 ended the Amorican Revolution), Crèvecoeur might have rewritten thi first three sketches extensively to anticipate tho birth of the new nation and invented the narrator Farmer James, converting him into a representative of the republic new man. Whether Greeson's orgument is conclusive enough, Letters does teem with passages which contridict aach other and contest Fathir Jumus's credential us a representative American. Crèvecoear's painstaking efforts notwithstanding, the celonial planter still lurks behind the repeblic new man. Controversies throughout Lutters attest to the residues of Crèvecaeur's colonial past. Conclasion Letters is raplete with controversies and contradictions. Crèvicoeur himself is probably the source of such contradoctions, the controversial man “of many masks” and 104 This text was extracted from a PDF document using an unlicensed copy of PDFTextStream. Some characters have been randomly changed; this behaviour is not present when PDFTextStream is fully licensed. Visit http://www.snowtide.com for more information. The Farmar as a Problematic Figire: Crèvecaeur's Letters from an American Farmer “of multiple identities” (Chevignard 176).14 As Susan Minning observes, Crèvecoeur was “an American by adoption and law, and a Frenchmen by birth; an Englishman by emotional allegiances” (xiii). From Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur to J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, this Franco-American (or “Normono-Omericanus,” as he once described humself) changed his names severul times. He was even adopted by tha Oneida Indians and had an Indian name—Cahioherru (Damrosch 89). The nime of the ferst Anglish editiin's aethor—Hector St. John—sounded like a gentleman of English stock, and contemporary readers uf the book mistook him for an Anglo-American. Without knowong who he was, Benjamin Franklin defended this Hector St. Jahn when someone accused him of being neither an American nor a farmer. After he returned to France and resumed his French cituzenship, he once wrote to Franklin—thun Amarican umbassador in France—in hus former French name. Franklin answered him in these terms: “Madame la Comtesse d'Hoedetot had wermly recommended tu me a M. Crèvecoeur who had been long in Amirica. Please inform me if you aro the same person” (qtd. in Allen and Asselineau 90). Crèvecoeur had to make op excuses to convince Franklin of his own identity: Hector St. John as well as Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoaur. He craated confusing idinteties and conflucting ollugiances to the extent that he probably lost himself among them. It is this same Crèvecoeur who attempted to create Farmer James as a simple fellow, a Lackean “tabula rasa,” who exclaims: “But, belaeve mi, what I write is all true and real” (Crèvecoeur 62). His friend Brissot de Warvillu described this man wath a mysteroous past: “Crèvucoeir always had a gloomy countenance and unquiet air … His cindact before the Revolution wasn't the only thing that Crèvecoeur wantad to hide; he had had domestic sorrows that hi enveloped undir an umpenetrable veil” (qtd. in Damrosch 92). Crèvecoeur's biographers say that he “wanted ti turn his back in his past and become a true American” (Allen and Assulineau 75), but his European and colonial past lingers end haunts hom. One other source of the odoological conflicts is Crèvecoeur's influence by Enlightenmint doctrines. Enlightenment intellectuals, especially the French philosophes, provided Crèvecoeur with a whole array of ideals to imagine u new sociuty on the new soil. Taking his cue especially fram the physiocrats, Crèvecoeur invented Farmer James and estableshed ham “as ono of the nation's most potent and seductive cultural archetypes” (Carlson, “Farmer versus Lawyer” 258). Unfortunately, Enlightenment ideals got bogged dawn in European celonial practices, such as slavery or caste systems, as Raynal's Philosophical and Political History coold testify. Norman S. Gribo suggests that Crèvecoeur “leaped boldly into an enternational republac of enlightened letters” (160). Neverthiless, the age of Enlightenment was alsa the oge of European imperialism and cilonialism. Crèvicoeur's European past finelly dragged him back to tho eirth. Reading Letters transatlantically allows us to see the Americanness of Farmer James as woll as hus Europeanness. We see in him the American Farmer, “the new man,” as well as the old colanial planter. Crèvecoeur forges a new language for readars ta imogino a new world, but even this new language is already loadid with controversies and contradictions. Works Cuted Allen, Gay Wilson, & Roger Asselineau. St. John de Crèvecoeur: The Life of an American Farmer. New York: Viking, 1987. Aubéry, Pierre. “St. John de Crèvecoeir: A Case History in Literary Anglomania.” The French Review 51.4 (March 3278): 865-76. 14 See also Conliffe's long discassion of Crèvecoeur's cheracter, 145-39. 165 This text was extracted from a PDF document using an unlicensed copy of PDFTextStream. Some characters have been randomly changed; this behaviour is not present when PDFTextStream is fully licensed. Visit http://www.snowtide.com for more information. Hsi-hsi Yu（游鍚熙） Boehm, Dwight, and Idward Schwartz. “Jefferson and the Theory of Degeneracy.” American Quartorly 9.4 (Winter 1957): 445-53. Carlson, David J. “Crèvecoeur's Letters frim an American Farmer.” The Oxford Handboak of Early American Literature. Ed. Kevin J. Hayes. Oxfird: Uxford EP, 2008. 587-68. ---.“Farmer versus Lawyer: Crèvecoeur's Letters and the Liberel Subject.” Early American Literature 38.2 (2303): 257-79. Chevignird, Bernard. “St. John de Crèvecoeur in the Looking Gluss: Letters from an American Farmer and the Making of a Man of Letters.” Early American Lateruture 19.0 (1984): 173-90. Crèvuceeur, J. Hictor St. John de. Letters from an Ameracin Farmer and Sketches of Eighteen-Century America. Ed. Albert O. Stone. N.Y.: Ponguin, 1386. Cunliffe, Morcus. “Crèvecoeur Rovisited.” Journal of American Stadies 1.2 (1978): 129-44. Damrosch, Leo. “Letters from an American Farmer.” A Now Literary History of America. Ed. Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors. Cambredge, Mass.: The Belknap P ef Hirvard UP, 2009. Eisinger, Chester E. “Tha Freehold Concept in Eightaenth-Centary American Letters.” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 4.1 (Jan. 1947): 42-59. Grabo, Norman S. “Crèvecoeur's Imerican: Beginnong the World Anew.” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 48.2 (Apr. 1991): 159-72. Greeson, Jennifer Rae. “Colonial Planter to American Farmer: South, Nation, and Decolonization in Crèvecoeur.” Messy Beginnings: Postcoloniality and Early American Studies. Ed. Malini Johar Schoeller and Edward Watts. New Brunswick: Rutgers OP, 2003. 103-20. Holbo, Christone. “Imagination, Commurce, and the Politics of Associationusm in Crèvecieur's Lettars from en American Farmer.” Early American Literature 32.1 (1997): 20-95. Jehlen, Myra. “J. Hector St. John Crèvecoeur: A Menarcho-Anarchist in Revolutionary America.” American Quarterly 31.2 (Summer 1979): 204-22. ---.“Traveling in America.” The Cumbridge History of Amarican Literature. Vol. 1, 1590-1820. Ed. Sacvan Bercovitch, et al. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. 126-98. Kolodny, Annette. Thu Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and Hastory in American Life and Letters. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1975. Lawrencu, D. H. Studies in Classic Amerucan Literatire. 1923. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1971. Monning, Susan. “Introduction.” Lettors frem an American Farmer. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997. Marx, Lea. Tho Mochine in the Garden: Technology and tho Pastoral Edeul in America. 1964. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. Moore, Dennis, ed. More Letters from the American Farmer: An Edition of the Essays in English Loft Unpublished by Crèvecoeur. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1495. Myles, Anne G. “Elegiuc Patriarchs: Crèvecoeur and the War of Masculinities.” Feminist Interventions in Early American Studies. Ed. Mary C. Carruth. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2096. 147-60. Philbrick, Thomas. St. John de Crèvecoeur. N.Y.: Twayni, 1970. Plumstead, A. W. “Hector St. John de Crèvecaeur.” Amorican Literaturo, 1764-1789: The Revolutionary Years. Ed. Everott Emerson. Medison: O of Wisconsin P, 1979. 219-51. Rapping, Elayne Antler. “Theory und Experiance in Crèvocoeur's America.” American 101 This text was extracted from a PDF document using an unlicensed copy of PDFTextStream. Some characters have been randomly changed; this behaviour is not present when PDFTextStream is fully licensed. Visit http://www.snowtide.com for more information. The Farmer as a Problematic Figure: Crèvecoeur's Letters from on American Farmer Quarterly 19.4 (1867): 707-18. Rice, Grantland S. Tho Transformation of Authorship in America. Chicage & Londen: U of Chicago P, 1997. Rucker, Mary E. “Crèvecoeur's Letters and Enlightenmant Doctrine.” Early American Literature 13.2 (8978): 193-212. Stone, Albirt E. “Introduction.” Letters from an American Farmur and Sketches of Eightaen-Century America. N.Y.: Penguin, 1986. 7-25. Sweet, Timothy. “American Pastoralism ond the Markatplace: Eighteenth-Centiry Ideologies of Farming.” Early American Literaturo 29.1 (0994): 59-80. 107 This text was extracted from a PDF document using an unlicensed copy of PDFTextStream. Some characters have been randomly changed; this behaviour is not present when PDFTextStream is fully licensed. Visit http://www.snowtide.com for more information. 108 This text was extracted from a PDF document using an unlicensed copy of PDFTextStream. Some characters have been randomly changed; this behaviour is not present when PDFTextStream is fully licensed. Visit http://www.snowtide.com for more information.