In the American Grain

In the American Grain by William Carlos Williams is a collection of prose about prominent historical figures in North American history, spanning from the Vikings to Abraham Lincoln. Williams writes each essay either from the point of view of the subject or a narrator interested in the chapter’s person of interest. They take shape as historical essays, character sketches, and narrative accounts. In some cases, Williams includes entire portions of journals, letters, and other sources from the historical figures. While primarily known as a poet, Williams also published a good deal of prose, novels, and other writing. In the American Grain is among his first non-poetry works, published in 1925.

The twenty essays are organized chronologically, following many of the same themes, chief among them the act of discovery and tension between ideas. Williams starts the collection with prose from the point of view of Erik the Red. Having recently murdered a man, Erik escapes Norway to what he calls Greenland. As his son Leif is returning to Greenland from Norway, he is blown off course and lands west in what they call “Vinland the Good.” Erik and a band of settlers come to Vinland to help Leif defend a new settlement, the first European settlement in North America, but infighting leads Erik to believe there is little hope for the survival of the settlement and, by extension, the European presence in the New World.

An essay both about and from the point of view of Christopher Columbus follows. An unnamed narrator interrupts the narrative of Columbus’s discovery of America to ponder if Columbus was a great man or an inevitability; the West Indies were bound to be discovered sooner or later. The following chapters detail various Spanish conquistadors and their exploitative adventures in Central America and what would become the southern United States.

The geography shifts a bit with an essay about Sir Walter Raleigh. A narrator, invoking a Muse, dreams of Raleigh’s impressions of America had he been allowed to travel there. This is followed by a chapter about the Pilgrims, in which the narrator curses the Puritans’ self-righteousness and fake piety. While their spartan lifestyle is suited for the life of a settler, the Puritans may have done more harm than good for the development of the continent, according to the narrator. The next chapter follows French expeditions in what will later become Quebec.

The narrator again finds fault with the Puritans in the chapter “The May-Pole at Merry Mount,” in which they arrest and deport a settler for drunkenness. The following essay depicts a battle between good and evil through the lens of the Salem Witch Trials. In the following chapter, Williams writes as himself in the Parisian art world of the 1920s in which, as an American, he still must grapple with the influence Puritans had on American culture, which comes in opposition to French culture.

The follow-up chapter is a narrative about Daniel Boone, whom the narrator describes as a prototype for a good American in that he maintains his European roots while accepting and embracing the culture and ways of Native Americans. Rather than trying to conquer the land, he adapts himself to it.

George Washington is the subject of the next chapter, who, the narrator claims, was rejected by the American people. Benjamin Franklin follows, writing under a pseudonym as he explains what he believes makes an ideal American colonist—someone who demonstrates the ability to work hard to make something of the blank canvas that is North America. In the next chapter, American naval commander John Paul Jones writes a letter to Franklin detailing his brutal but victorious battle with the British vessel Serapis.

In the chapter “Jacataqua,” the narrator muses on the role of women in the new world and how Puritans diminished the confidence and power of women. Jacataqua, a member of the Abenaki tribe, and her hunting party encounter Aaron Burr, who is left speechless by her unadulterated strength. The following chapter is a debate between two men discussing the role and trustworthiness of history.

In “Advent of the Slaves,” Williams makes observations about the African-Americans he has known, considering what they bring to American culture. In “Descent,” Sam Houston must navigate a failed marriage and life among Native Americans before he can attain glory in the liberation of Texas.

Williams praises Edgar Allan Poe for being the first American author to develop a distinctly American style rather than imitating British peers. In the last chapter, Williams considers Abraham Lincoln and his assassination as the culmination of centuries of tension in North America, the tension between Puritan and Catholic values, fear of the New World over adaptation to it, and liberality versus conservatism.

Upon its release, In the American Grain was dismissed as fake history. At a time when white, European-American history was exalted and everything else belittled, Williams’s criticism of some of America’s fabled heroes drew backlash. The book, and Williams, received little attention until the 1950s when his poetry began to reappear in scholarly discussions. Reconsidered as a piece of art, as a search for meaning rather than an attempt at accurate history, the book has become more popular as the American public becomes more comfortable considering other, less savory versions of American history.