Heurs et malheurs dans la Virginie coloniale

Abstract

Fortunes and Misfortunes in Colonial Virginia. As soon as colonization and History were introduced into the New World, Virginia (or in other words America) ceased to be viewed as the Land of Canaan which owed its promise of universal happiness to Nature or to God. The private writings of colonial and early planters exhibit a wide variety of events and feelings, wherein pleasure and hardship, public or private, are intertwined and unequally distributed. In contrast to the earlier holistic dream, America soon became the seat of a hierarchical society, where the public and private spheres promptly separated. With the creation of the republic, it fell to political institutions, as mediators between the two spheres, to take charge of "public good", which was more and more conceived as the sum of the private interests. The nation was then responsible for guaranteeing the citizens’ right to the pursuit of happiness.