J. Hector St. John de Crèvocoeur

First off, long name.  Secondly, long name.  Thirdly, long name.  Fourthly, let's talk about this guy.  The first thing I find fascinating about the guy whom lends his name to the title of this blog post is that he had so many hardships to deal with, both before and after he came to the colonies.  When he came to the colonies, he immediately seemed to feel pride in it and started to call it his home.

Hang on, let me backtrack.  He had one wife/fiancee die.  Then he got married once he got to the colonies to someone else.  They had a few kids.  He leaves the colonies for a time, but then returns to find that his wife had been murdered and his children were living with strangers.  I mean, that's rough.  That's really rough.

In all of it, however, he still seemed to love America and consider himself an American, no matter where he was at.  I think he said it best (at least for his time) when he said that upon arriving on the shores of the colonies, you feel a sense of national pride in your countrymen and what they have accomplished here.  That is what an American was at that time.  They felt more pride in America (the British Colonies) than they did in their home countries (their motherlands).