Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
3. How does Occom reconcile his spiritual needs with his physical needs
when teaching the Mohegans?
4. Why does Occom go into such detail on his teaching methods and
schedules, as well as his religious meetings routine? How do you know?
5. How and why does Occom defend himself against the gentlemen of
Boston’s (the group working to propagating the Gospel in New England)
assumption of Occom’s “extravagance?” What attitude towards Native
Americans do the Boston gentlemen seem to hold, do you think? How
fairly do they treat Occom? Why?
3.6 J. HECTOR ST. JOHN DE CRÈVECŒUR
(1735–1813)
Crevecoeur was born Michel-
Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur in Caen,
Normandy. Only after he was in America
did he change his name to J. Hector
St. John de Crevecoeur. He came to
North America in 1755, enlisting in the
Canadian militia during the French and
Indian War; he served as a surveyor
and cartographer. After leaving the
military, he traveled through New York,
Pennsylvania, and the southern colonies,
making a living as a surveyor and trader
with Native Americans.
In 1769, he bought farmland in
Orange County, New York, married, and
raised a family. The American Revolution
disrupted this idyllic pastoral life. A Tory
sympathizer, Crevecoeur left for France
Image 3.6 | J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur
Artist | Unknown
ostensibly to recover family lands, and
Source | Wikimedia Commons
returned to post-war America as French License | Public Domain
consul for New York, New Jersey, and
Connecticut. During his absence, his wife had died, his farm was burned in a Native
American raid, and his children relocated with strangers. He continued for some
years as a successful diplomat before returning to France in 1780. Two years later,
he published his Letters from an American Farmer, recording his observations of
America, from Pennsylvania to Charles Town and the western frontier. Using the
persona of Farmer James—who hailed from a farm not in Orange County, New York
but near Carlisle, Pennsylvania—and suppressing his Tory sympathies, Crevecoeur
praised the agrarian life. He noted extensive elds and decent houses in a land
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