American National Character

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that America began as a conglomerate of individuals seeking religious freedom and criminals seeking to establish a new life, but the nation gradually began to evolve into a more clearly defined social network with hierarchies of status. The author points out that the farmer, Crevecoeur, credited England for the success of America, but, clearly, the inhabitants are once-removed and different in character from the originators of the American nation. The paper relates that Equiano wrote that race in the absence of class and heredity was a marker of status and usually not a positive one.

From the Paper:

"Letters from an American Farmer" is a unique snapshot of the early nation because its author lived and toiled the land of America, yet was supplanted from another nation. According to the website devoted to the author, it is unclear if the man ever became naturalized. Regardless, his commentary is a valuable perspective on early American life. The farmer Crevecoeur noted, in letter three of his "Letters from an American Farmer, to his erstwhile correspondent, "I wish I could be acquainted with the feelings and thoughts which must agitate the heart and present themselves to the mind of an enlightened Englishman, when he first lands on this continent. "

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