Letters From An American Farmer

At Mr. F.B.’s insistence, James discusses American snakes, clarifying first that he has “very little to observe” on the issue apart aside from two specific incidents, “one of which I saw and the other I received from an eyewitness” (167). James explains that there are only two American snakes “whose stings are mortal, [and] which deserve to be mentioned” “the pilot, or copperhead” and “the rattlesnake” (167).

James has “heard only of one person who was stung by a copperhead,” and recalls that the “poor wretch instantly swelled in a most dreadful manner” (167). In “madness and rage,” he “thrust out his tongue as the snakes do” and “hissed through his teeth” before dying “in the space of two hours” (168). James observes that, in comparison the “poison of the rattlesnake is not mortal in so short a space” (168), but that “[o]ne of this species was the cause, some years ago, of a most deplorable accident” (168-69).

A rattlesnake had attacked a farmer before “[o]ne of his Negroes cut it in two with his scythe” (169). He continued with his working day without incident and returned home, where he “pulled off his boots and went to bed” (169), only to grow sick and die in the night. The farmer’s son “put on his father’s boots” (169) and later died in the same manner. When “the widow sold all the movables,” a neighbor bought the boots and also grew sick but called “an eminent physician,” who “recovered the man” and discovered that “the two fangs of the snake had been left in the leather” (169) and had poisoned the farmer and his son when they removed the boots.

James also tells a tale he witnessed himself. Having climbed a large hemp plant on his property in order to watch “the great number of humming-birds with which our country abounds” (171), he saw two snakes fighting. The “aggressor was of the black kind, six feet long; the fugitive was a water snake, nearly of equal dimensions” (172). The two struggled together, with the water snake attempting to flee. Eventually, they accidentally “plunged into [a] ditch” (173) filled with water. The black snake held the other “under the water, until it was stifled and sunk,” and then “returned on shore and disappeared” (173).

Iwan finds John working on his farm alongside his laborers and asks to “spend a few hours in [his] garden” (176). John says that “the greatest advantage […] [of] what thee callest my botanical fame” is that it means John receives “the visits of friends and foreigners” (176). He invites Iwan to dine with him; his family, his workers, and “his Negroes,” all sit at “a long table full of victuals” (177). John explains that although his community “never knew how to use ceremonies” and were “utterly strangers to what the world calleth polite expressions,” they “treat others as [they] treat [them]selves” (177).

After dinner, John shows Iwan around his property, including a greenhouse with the words “Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through nature, up to nature’s God!” (180) written over the door. The “sun [i]s almost down” by the time their tour is over and, worried that it would seem improper, Iwan “bluntly inform[s] him of the pleasure [he] had enjoyed, and with the desire [he] had of staying a few days with him” (180). John says Iwan is “as welcome as if [John] was thy father,” adding that “thy desire for knowledge […] entitleth thee to consider [John’s] house as thine own as long as thee pleaseth” (180).

John next shows Iwan various developments he has made on his farm; Iwan declares them “a miracle of husbandry” (181). Iwan explains that such methods are not used in Russia because “[o]ur lands are so unequally divided and so few of our farmers are possessors of the soil they till that they cannot execute plans of husbandry with the same vigour as you do” (182). He also reassures John that “tyranny never can take a strong hold in this country; the land is too widely distributed; it is poverty in Europe that makes slaves” (182).

When asked about how he became a botanist, John replies that, as a farmer, he had thought it a shame “that thee shouldest have employed so many years in tilling the earth and destroying so many flowers and plants without being acquainted with their structures and their uses!” (183). Despite his wife’s objections, John “began to botonize all over [his] farms,” gradually expanding his range until he had “acquired a pretty general knowledge of every plant and tree to be found in our continent” (184).

Iwan asks John by “what means […] do you rule your slaves so well, that they seem to do their work with the cheerfulness of white men?” (184). John explains that they are free and paid “eighteen pounds a year, with victuals and clothes and all other privileges which the white men enjoy” (185). Iwan is impressed and declares that “happy would it be for America would other denominations of Christianity imbibe the same principles and follow the same admirable rules” (186). When Iwan says that regrettably, there are slaves in Russia “attached to the soil on which they live,” John warns that “the country can never flourish under such impolitic government” (186).

Iwan joins John at a Quaker gathering and is impressed with the humbleness and “[h]ow simple their precepts, how unadorned their religious system” (188). He respects the way they live “under the mildest government” and are “guided by the mildest doctrine […] following the doctrines of Jesus Christ in that simplicity with which they were delivered” (188). He enjoys the way the Quakers’ lives, beliefs, and practices are “entirely free from those ornaments and political additions which each country and each government hath fashioned after its own manner,” and believes that “a happier system could not have been devised for the use of mankind” (188).

As the Revolutionary War looms closer, James announces that “the hour is come at last that I must fly from my house and abandon my farm!” (189). He is filled with dread, and wherever he looks, “the most frightful precipices present themselves to my view, in which hundreds of my friends and acquaintances have already perished” (189). His whole community feels vulnerable and “never go[es] out to our fields [as] we are seized with an involuntary fear, which lessens our strength and weakens our labour” (191).

James’s loyalties are divided between his country of birth, England, and his country of residence. Weighing up the two possibilities, he notes that “[i]f I attach myself to the mother country […] I become what is called an enemy to my own region; if I follow the rest of my countrymen, I become opposed to our ancient masters” (193). A “lover of peace,” he despairs at the way “[t]he innocent class are always the victims of the few” and “[g]reat 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” (193).

Thinking of “the calamities that have already overtaken our poor afflicted country,” James imagines that he can “hear the groans of thousands of families now ruined and desolated by our aggressors,” and “cannot count the multitude of orphans this war has made nor ascertain the immensity of blood we have lost” (194). He speculates that, “[d]id he but know the circumstances of this horrid war,” the King of England “would put a stop to that long destruction of parents and children” (197).

Sick of politics and violence and finding no clear side to take within the conflict, James decides that, having “ceased to consider myself as a member of the ancient state now convulsed, I willingly descend into an inferior one” (201), and plans to live with Native Americans. He believes that he will “revert into a state approaching nearer to that of nature, unencumbered either with voluminous laws or contradictory codes,” because “far removed from the accursed neighbourhood of Europeans, [American Indians] live with more ease, decency, and peace,” and “though governed by no laws, yet find in uncontaminated simple manners all that laws can afford” (201).

Having “never possessed nor wish[ing] to possess anything more than what could be earned or produced by the united industry of my family” (202), James believes that the transition to this new society will not be difficult. Indeed, he asks “what is it to us whether […] we wear neat homespun or good beaver, whether we sleep on feather-beds or on bearskins?” (203). James recalls examples of white people who, having been taken captive by Native Americans and then released, “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” (204). In fact, James notes that “thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no example of even one of those aborigines having from choice become Europeans!” (205).

James plans to travel with his family, taking “but a few necessary articles of covering, [and] trusting to the furs of the chase for our future apparel” and “say[ing] to my Negroes, ‘In the name of God, be free, my honest lads” (209). James also plans “to build [him]self a wigwam” (210) and “plough, sow, and hunt, as […] require[d]” (211). He does not want his family to adopt all the Native Americans’ “savage customs,” as they “can live in great peace and harmony with them without descending to every article” (211). More than this, James actually hopes to influence his hosts by “retrac[ing] to them the great outlines of their duty to God and to man” and “persuad[ing] them, if I can, to till a little more land than they do” (212). He believes that “my example alone may rouse the industry of some and serve to direct others in their labours” (213).

James looks forward to what he believes will be a humble, natural, and rewarding life. He speculates about discourse in which “[n]ot a word of politics shall cloud our simple conversation” (217) and pictures a life in which he can “contemplate Nature in her most wild and ample extent” (218). He sees this as an aspect of his religious practice, saying that the:

Supreme Being does not reside in peculiar churches or communities; He is equally the great Manitou of the woods and of the plains; and even in the gloom, the obscurity of those very wood, His justice may be as well understood and felt as in the most sumptuous temples (216).