Joel Roberts Poinsett
Joel Roberts Poinsett (March 2, 1779December 12, 1851) was an American
physician,
botanist,
politician, and
diplomat. He was the first U.S. agent in
South America, a member of the
South Carolina Legislature in the
South Carolina State Capitol, at the
state capital town of
Columbia, and later a
United States Representative (congressman) in the
U.S. House of Representatives (the lower chamber of the
Congress of the United States), serving 1821-1825. He was appointed by 6th
President,
John Quincy Adams as the first
United States Minister to Mexico (
ambassador), He replaced
U.S. Army General
James Wilkinson (1757-1825), who had been in the
Royal Spanish colony of the
Viceroyalty of
New Spain (of
Mexico) as an
envoy for a decade, 1816-1825. Minister Poinsett served 1825-1829. (continuing into the first year of the successor
Andrew Jackson presidential administration). Mexico had recently declared its independence in 1821, and formed a new brief provisional government then later as the
First Mexican Empire (1823-1824), (
Mexico), from the
Kingdom of Spain and its longtime colonial
Viceroyalty of
New Spain, in the
Americas portion of the world-wide
Spanish Empire. He served to represent the American government during his term to the subsequent another Mexican provisional interim government and then following the
First Mexican Republic regime in a tumultuous period of their
history in their
capital city of
Mexico City.
Poinsett was a strong supporter of
Andrew Jackson during the early to mid-
19th century in favor of his policies of
Jacksonian democracy. He was
Unionist leader in
South Carolina during that state's threatened refusal to accept and enforce certain federal laws and
tariff levies on imported goods in the earlier
secessionist rebellion of the
Nullification Crisis of the
1830s. Jackson threatened in return to subdue by military force if necessary the rebellious
southern "Palmetto State", during the
presidential administration of 7th President
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845, served 1829-1837).
Poinsett was subsequently appointed 15th
U.S. Secretary of War in the
Presidential Cabinet under Jackson's successor, 8th
President,
Martin Van Buren (1782-1862, served 1837-1841), of
New York state, supervising the
U.S. Department of War and it's military forces of the
United States Army.
He was a co-founder of the earlier
National Institute for the Promotion of Science and the Useful Arts in the
1840s, (a predecessor of the modern
Smithsonian Institution, endowed by
James Smithson (1765-1829, a
British scientist -
chemist /
mineralogist), and its system of museums and cultural / scientific agencies in
Washington, D.C. and
New York City).
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