page_title: Joel Roberts Poinsett
section_title: First Minister to Mexico
hierarchical_section_title: Joel Roberts Poinsett / Political career / First Minister to Mexico
caption_attribution_description: Illustration of Poinsettia Pulcherrima (Euphorbia pulcherrima Willd. ex Klotzsch)
context_page_description: Joel Roberts Poinsett was an American physician and diplomat. He was the first U.S. agent in South America, a member of the South Carolina legislature and the United States House of Representatives, the first United States Minister to Mexico, a Unionist leader in South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis, Secretary of War under Martin Van Buren, and a co-founder of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science and the Useful Arts.
context_section_description: Poinsett simultaneously served as a special envoy to Mexico from 1822 to 1823, when the government of James Monroe became concerned about the stability of newly independent Mexico. Poinsett, a supporter of the Monroe Doctrine, was convinced that republicanism was the only guarantee of a peaceful, free form of government for North American countries, and tried to influence the government of Agustín de Iturbide, which was beginning to show signs of weakness and divisiveness.
  On January 12, 1828, in Mexico City, Poinsett signed the first treaty between the United States and Mexico, the Treaty of Limits, a treaty that recognized the U.S.-Mexico border established by the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty between Spain and the U.S.
  Because some U.S. political leaders were dissatisfied with the Treaty of Limits and the Adams–Onís Treaty, Poinsett was sent to negotiate acquisition of new territories for the United States, including Texas, New Mexico, and Upper California, as well as parts of Lower California, Sonora, Coahuila, and Nuevo León; but Poinsett's offer to purchase these areas was rejected by the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs headed by Juan Francisco de Azcárate. (Poinsett wrote Notes on Mexico, a memoir of his time in the First Mexican Empire and at the court of Agustín de Iturbide.)
  The U.S. recognized Mexican independence but it was not until 1825 and the establishment of the Mexican Republic that it sent a minister plenipotentiary. Andrew Jackson and several others turned down the appointment, but Poinsett accepted and resigned his congressional seat. He became embroiled in the country's political turmoil until his recall in 1830, but he did try to further U.S. interests in Mexico by seeking preferential treatment of U.S. goods over those of Britain, attempting to shift the U.S.–Mexico boundary, and urging the adoption of a constitution patterned on that of the U.S.
  After visiting an area south of Mexico City near Taxco de Alarcón, Poinsett saw what later became known in the United States as the poinsettia.  (In Mexico it is called Flor de Nochebuena, Christmas Eve flower, or Catarina).  Poinsett, an avid amateur botanist, sent samples of the plant to the United States, and by 1836 the plant was widely known as the "poinsettia". Also a species of Mexican lizard, Sceloporus poinsettii, is named in Poinsett's honor.
caption: Mexican "flor de la noche buena," called in the U.S. the poinsettia.
exif: {}