Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur

Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur (1735-1813), French writer, known for his works in both French and English describing life in the American colonies around the time of the American Revolution (1775-1783). Born near Caen, and educated in both France and England, Crèvecoeur served in the French and Indian War (1754-1763) under French commander Marquis de Montcalm and traveled throughout the British colonies of North America. In 1765 he became a citizen of the colony of New York, and in 1769 he settled on a farm in Orange County, New York. He lived in France from 1780 to 1783, in the United States as French consul in New York City from 1783 to 1790, and in France again from 1790 until his death. Under the pseudonym J. Hector St. John he wrote, in English, the series of essays for which he is best known, Letters from an American Farmer (1782). The essays provide remarkable details about life in colonial America and during the early years of the United States. Crèvecoeur’s Sketches of Eighteenth Century America (1925), a collection of newspaper articles he wrote under the pseudonym Agricola, give further evidence of his vigorous insight into the distinctive character of the United States and the American people.