American? In J. Hector St. John De

¶ … American?

In J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur's letter "What is an American?," the author attempts to familiarize the reader with the general lifestyle and character of a settler inhabiting the British North American colonies in an effort to demonstrate the concept of a uniquely American identity, formed out of the disparate influences which informed the culture of the time and region. De Crevecoeur describes the terrain, climate, religious attitudes, and occupations found on the newly colonized continent, and in doing so he illustrates the set of conditions which had helped transform the colonies' diverse European population into a unique, new culture known as American.

According to de Crevecoeur, the essence of the American identity is its multicultural heritage, or more specifically, its diverse European background. Because of the intermarriage of many European settlers since the early days of colonization, the American "is either an European, or the descendant of an European, hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country" (de Crevecoeur, 1782, p. 54). Although most Americans are generally of European descent, they tend to be a combination of several nationalities rather than of only British, French, Dutch, or German descent. This multicultural heritage enables new trends of thought and behavior to emerge, as the American leaves "behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, [and receive] new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds" (de Crevecoeur, p. 55). Thus, for de Crevecoeur, the central reason for America's unique character is the combination of European heritages such that their blending results in a culture fundamentally different from any of its constituent parts.

From this mix of heritages come new attitudes regarding the notions of equality and hard work motivated by self-interest. These ideas, coupled with fundamentally altered attitudes toward religion, resulted in an American identity that was wholly different from its European ancestors, because home-taught catechism and the fact that many families of different religious beliefs were living in such close proximity to each other caused first generation children to be less ideologically zealous than if they had been instructed in Europe. Thus, according to de Crevecoeur, "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" (de Crevecoeur, p. 66).

Finally, the actual terrain and climate in which this newly created identity flourished had an immense effect on its formulation. Comparing the North American landscape in general to the soil itself, Crevecoeur, a farmer, appropriately suggests that "men are like plants; the goodness and flavour of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow" (de Crevecoeur, p. 56). To illustrate how the quality of the American citizen depends greatly on the region where one resides, Crevecoeur presents brief sketches of three basic types of American citizen: the sailor, the farmer, and the frontier settler. Residing on the coast is the sailor or merchant, "a boisterous element" who is "bold and enterprising" and has "a love of traffic" (de Crevecoeur, p. 57). In the "middle settlements" are the farmers, described with a litany of praise as citizens of "industry, good living, selfishness, litigiousness, country politics, [with] the pride of freemen, [and] religious indifference" (de Crevecoeur, p. 57). Lastly, the frontier settler lives in the sparsely inhabited woods, "driven there by misfortunes, necessity of beginnings, desire of acquiring large tracks of land, idleness, frequent want of economy, ancient debts." So isolated from the rest, they are "beyond the reach of government," and "the few magistrates they have, are in general little better than the rest" who behave more like "carnivorous animals of a superior rank" than people" (de Crevecoeur, p. 59).