ABSTRACT
A LITTLE more than two hundred years ago, just as the thirteen colonies were emerging victorious from their War of Independence, Letters from an American Farmer appeared in print.
Published first in London and followed quickly by editions in Dublin, Belfast, Leipzig, Berlin, and Paris, the book was addressed to "a friend in England." It described the customs, manners, work habits, and "modes of thinking" of Nantucket fishermen, backwoods frontiersmen, and Carolina slaveholders, as well as the people in the New World whom the author knew best-the small farmers and freeholders of New York and Pennsylvania.
