Letters From An American Farmer

“Misguided religion, tyranny, and absurd laws everywhere depress and afflict mankind. Here we have in some measure regained the ancient dignity of our species: our laws are simple and just; we are a race of cultivators; our cultivation is unrestrained; and therefore everything is prosperous and flourishing.”

Many of the early celebrations of America come from the minister’s declarations. He lays out several of the points that James will later discuss, including the idea that America is free of the exploitation found in Europe and the importance of living a “natural” life. He even draws on the symbolic connections between thriving fauna and thriving communities that appear throughout the book.

“I trace their various inclinations and the different effects of their passions, which are exactly the same as among men; the law is to us precisely what I am in my barn-yard, a bridle and check to prevent the strong and greedy from oppressing the timid and weak.”

James is highly critical of the use of coercive power and of the limits to freedom occasioned by laws that are too rigid, too restrictive, or too numerous and far-reaching. However, he also believes that there must be some simple laws and non-intrusive government to protect the weak from the strong, who might otherwise exploit the weak and take from them. He utilizes his own experiences of managing his cattle to highlight the importance of such benevolent governance. 

“I have often blushed within myself, and been greatly astonished, when I have compared the unerring path they all follow, all just, all proper, all wise, up to the necessary degree of perfection, with the coarse, the imperfect systems of men, not merely as governors and kings, but as masters, as husbands, as fathers, as citizens. But this is a sanctuary in which an ignorant farmer must not presume to enter.”

At various points in the book, James compares nature to human society. He highlights the industriousness of animals, the precise and uncoercive social organization, and the dedication to fulfilling one’s duty and calling. In almost all such cases, he finds human society to be almost shamefully inferior to the natural world. 

“I envy no man’s prosperity, and with no other portion of happiness than that I may live to teach the same philosophy to my children and given each of them a farm, show them how to cultivate it, and be like their father, good, substantial, independent American farmers.”

Living a simple and humble life is central to James’s perception of himself and the American character. He professes to have little interest in riches, desiring only to live a free, self-sufficient life and to be able to pass on such desires, and the skills required to achieve this goal, to his children, so that they can live the same humble life as him.

“It is not composed, as in Europe, of great lords who possess everything and a herd of people who have nothing. Here are no aristocratic families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible power giving to a few a very visible one, no great manufacturers employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury.”

The social differences between America and Europe is one of the book’s key themes. The difference James highlights most often is the absence of archaic hierarchies and the institutionalized exploitation of the poor. For him, at least in the early stages of the book, America is a paradise in which the common man can thrive without these oppressive structures.

“In Europe they were as so many useless plants, wanting vegetative mould and refreshing showers; they withered and were mowed down by want, hunger, and war; but now, by the power of transplantation, like all other plants they have taken root and flourished.”

James frequently employs allusions to the natural world to illuminate aspects of human society. Often, this serves to highlight the fact that America is both a fertile land ripe for agriculture—something on which he places great significance—and a free land that is ripe for the building of new, thriving communities.

“Men are like plants; the goodness and flavor of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow. We are nothing but what we derive from the air we breathe, the climate we inhabit, the government we obey, the system of religion we profess, and the nature of our employment.”

James believes that the environment in which people live shapes their characters and their societies. Often, he means this quite literally, highlighting how conditions and climate alter the nature of people’s lives and so shape their outlook, beliefs, practices, and customs. Here, he intends it both figuratively and literally, using the symbolic comparisons to highlight the material reality of the connections between humans and their environments.

“Had this island been contiguous to the shores of some ancient monarchy, it would only have been occupied by a few wretched fishermen, who, oppressed by poverty, would hardly have been able to purchase or build little fishing barks, always dreading the weight of taxes or the servitude of men-of-war.”

James presents Nantucket as a model society and an example of all that is great about America and the American character. By suggesting that if Nantucket were ruled by a European monarchy, the island would only house a tiny colony of poverty-stricken fishermen, he seeks to prove the ways in which American egalitarianism allows common people to thrive without the oppressive restrictions and demands of the ruling classes.

“In the year 1763, above half of the Indians of this island perished by a strange fever, which the Europeans who nursed them never caught; they appear to be a race doomed to recede and disappear before the superior genius of the Europeans.”

By the last letter, James has begun to see Native Americans as representing his only hope of living a truly free life of communing with nature without the restrictions and violence of white culture. However, earlier in the book, he sees Native Americans only as peoples destined to be wiped out by Europeans, something he concludes is inevitable and, seemingly, an acceptable result of white people’s supposed superiority. 

“They have all disappeared either in the wars which the Europeans carried on against them, or else they have mouldered away, gathered in some of their ancient towns, in contempt and oblivion; nothing remains of them all, but one extraordinary monument, and even this they owe to the industry and religious zeal of the Europeans, I mean, the Bible translated into the Nattic tongue.”

Prior to—and to some extent after—his disillusionment with both European and American life, James holds an extremely dismissive and diminishing view of American Indian cultures. When he does compliment them, it is usually a backhanded compliment that assumes white culture to be superior to their own. His inability to recognize any achievements other than the translation of a Christian text is a particularly stark demonstration of this view. 

“[N]o artificial phantoms subsist here, either civil or religious; no gibbets loaded with guilty citizens offer themselves to your view; no soldiers are appointed to bayonet their compatriots into servile compliance. But how is a society composed of 5,000 individuals preserved in the bonds of peace and tranquility? How are the weak protected from the strong? I will tell you. Idleness and poverty, the causes of so many crimes, are unknown here.”

One of the aspects of Nantucket that James celebrates most ardently is the lack of violent or coercive governance, which he presents as an ideal and an exemplary version of the “mild” government found throughout America. He suggests that the reason no such powers are required is that unlike Europe, in America, and in Nantucket especially, the lack of repressive class systems means that few are driven to crime as a means of survival. 

“How could the common follies of society take root in so despicable a soil; they generally thrive on its exuberant juices here there are none but those which administer to the useful, to the necessary, and to the indispensable comforts of life. This land must necessarily either produce health, temperance, and a great equality of conditions, or the most abject misery.”

The idea that environments shape the lives of those who live in them appears throughout the book. However, it is perhaps most prominent in James’s discussion of Nantucket. On the island, the soil is so barren that life is difficult, forcing a dedicated industriousness and tenacity on its inhabitants and preventing them from ever sinking into the corruption and vices that can plague societies established on more welcoming, yielding land.

“Shining talents and university knowledge would be entirely useless here, nay would be dangerous; it would pervert their plain judgement, it would lead them out of that useful path which is so well adapted to their situation.”

In the first letter, James is skeptical about his ability to converse with an educated Englishman, believing there to be little of value in his simple speech and humble experiences. It is only the minister’s insistence on the validity and significance of such perspectives that James goes ahead with the correspondence, and then only reluctantly. However, by the later letters, he is far more confident in the worth of such humble lives, and compares them favorably with the sophistication and academic knowledge of Europe.

“[B]ut let me not forget another peculiar characteristic of this community; there is not a slave I believe on the whole island, at least among the Friends [Quakers]; whilst slavery prevails all around them, this society alone, lamenting that shocking insult offered to humanity, have given the world a singular example of moderation, disinterestedness, and Christian charity in emancipating their Negroes.”

Although he is himself a slave owner, James takes a negative view of slavery. This appears first in his celebration of the Quakers’ refusal to own slaves based on religious grounds. This initially-mild criticism of slavery prefigures the far more impassioned and virulent condemnation found in Letter IX. 

“Idleness is the most heinous sin that can be committed on Nantucket: an idle man would soon be pointed out as an object of compassion, for idleness is considered as another word for want and hunger.”

James celebrates many aspects of life in Nantucket, often presenting the community as a model society and an example of the best aspects of the American character. However, the characteristic that he is perhaps most passionate about is the inhabitants’ industriousness, which is so deep-seated that a lack of industry is seen as a pitiable failing.

“Here lived a single family without a neighbor; I had never before seen a spot better calculated to cherish contemplative ideas, perfectly unconnected with the great world, and far removed from its perturbations.”

From the earliest letters, James reveres simple lives that are deeply enmeshed in the natural world. As the book progresses, this reverence grows stronger and begins to focus on figures further and further removed from American civilization. The sight of a family living among nature far from any neighbors is a particularly pronounced example of this.

“While all is joy, festivity, and happiness in Charles Town, would you imagine that scenes of misery overspread in the country? Their ears by habit are […] deaf, their hearts hardened; they neither see, hear, nor feel for the woes of their poor slaves, from whose painful labours all their wealth proceeds.”

In this letter, James condemns many aspects of slavery and the slave trade. Much of his vitriol is directed at the apathetic refusal of Charles Town’s inhabitants to acknowledge the violence and abuse upon which their wealth is based.

“Even under those mild climates which seem to breath peace and happiness, the poison of slavery, the fury of despotism, and the rage of superstition are all combined against man!”

James considers that there are few places in the world where human beings can truly thrive, suggesting that life in some of the more extreme climates leads only to misery, hardship, and struggle. However, he is filled with despair when he concludes that even those places where humans can settle comfortably are tarnished by the institution of slavery or other abuses of the poor and vulnerable.

“For my part, I think the vices and miseries to be found in the latter exceed those of the former, in which real evil is more scarce, more supportable, and less enormous.”

On several occasions, James finds himself weighing the costs and benefits of life in civilized society and life in a more “natural” state. As the book progresses, he gradually moves more and more towards believing an “uncivilized” life to be preferable because it produces less suffering and fewer abuses.

“I fired at them; they all flew to a short distance, with a most hideous noise, when, horrid to think and painful to repeat, I perceived a Negro, suspended in the cage and left there to expire! I shudder when I recollect that the birds had already picked out his eyes; his cheek-bones were bare, his arms had been attacked in several places; and his body seemed covered with a multitude of wounds.”

Letter IX marks a significant shift in the tone and content of the book. Having celebrated America and the American character repeatedly in the preceding letters, his consideration of slavery begins to move him away from his naïve celebrations towards a more cynical and despairing outlet. At the end of the letter, he offers the harrowing scene that first set him on this course.

“It is for the sake of the great leaders 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.”

As he grows increasingly disillusioned with the violence and politics of both European and American society, James returns more vehemently than ever to his condemnation of the traditional oppression of common people. Where America had once represented an escape from such violence, he now sees it everywhere he looks.

“Do you, my friend, perceive the path I have found out? It is that which leads to the tenants of the great —— village of ——, where, far removed from the accursed neighbourhood of Europeans, [American Indians] live with more ease, decency, and peace than you imagine; who, though governed by no laws, yet find in uncontaminated simple manners all that laws can afford.”

In the earlier letters, James presents American Indians as a tragic, doomed race whose own cultures offer little and who are only worthy of celebration when they adopt European standards and practices. By the last letter, he turns his back on white culture with the intention of living among Native Americans instead. It’s interesting to note that in this quote, James omits both the name of the Native tribe and the name of the tribe’s village. This omission can be viewed as a means of making sure that Mr. F.B. can’t find James, even as James continues to write to him.

“They chose to remain, and the reasons they gave me would greatly surprise you: the most perfect freedom, the ease of living, the absence of those cares and corroding solicitudes which so often prevail with us.”

For much of the book, James asserts that America’s gentle government and egalitarian social organization allow Europeans to find a freedom that they could not find in Europe. However, disillusioned by his countrymen’s use of slaves and the encroaching Revolutionary War, he no longer sees white society as being able to offer such liberty, locating American Indian society as the only place where he can truly live free.