Flowers, Guns, and Money: Joel Roberts Poinsett and the Paradoxes of American Patriotism: American Beginnings, 1500-1900
Autor Lindsay Schakenbach Regeleen Limba Engleză Paperback – 27 noi 2023
Joel Roberts Poinsett’s (1779–1851) brand of self-interested patriotism illuminates the paradoxes of the antebellum United States. He was a South Carolina investor and enslaver, a confidant of Andrew Jackson, and a secret agent in South America who fought surreptitiously in Chile’s War for Independence. He was an ambitious Congressman and Secretary of War who oversaw the ignominy of the Trail of Tears and orchestrated America’s longest and costliest war against Native Americans, yet also helped found the Smithsonian. In addition, he was a naturalist, after whom the poinsettia—which he appropriated while he was serving as the first US ambassador to Mexico—is now named.
As Lindsay Schakenbach Regele shows in Flowers, Guns, and Money, Poinsett personified a type of patriotism that emerged following the American Revolution, one in which statesmen served the nation by serving themselves, securing economic prosperity and military security while often prioritizing their own ambitions and financial interests. Whether waging war, opposing states’ rights yet supporting slavery, or pushing for agricultural and infrastructural improvements in his native South Carolina, Poinsett consistently acted in his own self-interest. By examining the man and his actions, Schakenbach Regele reveals an America defined by opportunity and violence, freedom and slavery, and nationalism and self-interest.
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| University of Chicago Press – 27 noi 2023 | 571.52 lei 6-8 săpt. |
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9780226829623
ISBN-10: 0226829626
Pagini: 272
Ilustrații: 3 halftones
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 18 mm
Greutate: 0.37 kg
Ediția:1
Editura: University of Chicago Press
Colecția University of Chicago Press
Seria American Beginnings, 1500-1900
ISBN-10: 0226829626
Pagini: 272
Ilustrații: 3 halftones
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 18 mm
Greutate: 0.37 kg
Ediția:1
Editura: University of Chicago Press
Colecția University of Chicago Press
Seria American Beginnings, 1500-1900
Notă biografică
Lindsay Schakenbach Regele is associate professor of history at Miami University and the author of Manufacturing Advantage: War, the State, and the Origins of American Industry, 1776–1848.
Extras
Joel Roberts Poinsett is and was everywhere if we look for him. The Smithsonian, Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, the American Philosophical Society, the oldest stone bridge in the South. The War and State Departments, US Congress, the South Carolina General Assembly, Europe, Russia, South America, Mexico, the Caribbean. Andrew Jackson confided in him about military matters, and Emperor Alexander of Russia discussed US claims to the Pacific Northwest with him. He fought in Chile’s War for Independence and orchestrated the United States’ longest and costliest war against Native Americans in history. Today Poinsett’s primary visible traces are on the tags of the world’s most economically important potted plant: the Christmas flower called the “Poinsettia,” which he took from the Mexican state of Guerrero in 1828 on a business trip during his controversial tenure as America’s first minister plenipotentiary to the country. The story of how the United States appropriated the Aztec plant the Cuitlaxochitl, named it after Poinsett, and commercialized it speaks to the process by which American foreign relations and political economy developed in the nineteenth century, as well as to the role that Poinsett played in this development.
He worked as a secret agent in South America, ambassador to Mexico, South Carolina state legislator, US congressman, and secretary of war. His three-decade career included military planning for Chilean independence leaders, asserting US commercial interests in Mexico, and advocating the use of federal force against tariff opponents in his home state. All of these activities reflected an emerging form of political economy rooted in opportunism, chauvinism, and international competition. Poinsett personified a type of patriotism that emerged in the decades following the American Revolution, in which statesmen claimed to act in the service of the new American republic by securing economic prosperity and military security.
In many ways, we could call Poinsett a nationalist for his commitment to whiteness, Anglo-American culture, and militarism, but this word is steeped in twentieth-century meaning, and it was not a word that Poinsett or his correspondents used; instead, they used patriotism and patriot often. Early in his career, he used these words most frequently to refer to revolutionaries in South America, equating their independence movements with that of the “patriots” of the American Revolution. Patriotism was a value judgment used to compare individuals’ actions to those of the “patriot Washington”4 and to praise the “military spirit” that marked the “patriotism of the soldiers.” It could also be used to refer to any activity that advanced commercial or national interests, such as when South Carolina botanist Stephen Elliott referred to Amos Eaton’s work on geological surveys as a “patriotic pursuit.” Poinsett’s own friends and allies referred to his patriotism. Fellow Mason, South Carolina slave owner, and unionist Chapman Levy, for example, wrote to Poinsett in reference to his actions during the nullification crisis: “These feelings of high respect and kindness and regard for you, which sunk deep into my bosom in those trying times which evinced your exalted patriotism and devotion to our country, as well as your firmness and talents in its support, has remained unchanged.” And Commissioner of Indian Affairs Thomas Hartley Crawford wrote to Poinsett at the end of Poinsett’s term as secretary of war, “Your administration of the department was in the true spirit of patriotism.” When South Carolinians began seriously debating secession, Poinsett wrote that at least the “fanatics of the north” had “patriotism” and an “attachment to the union.”9 Finally, nine years before South Carolina’s threats became reality, Poinsett’s tombstone proclaimed his life and death as those of “a pure patriot, an honest man, and a good Christian.”
Poinsett matters, but not because he was “a pure patriot, an honest man,” or “a good Christian.”10 He was never fully any of those things. He matters because he embodied the contradictions and inconsistencies at the heart of the American experiment. He was born in South Carolina while it fought for independence from Great Britain, and he died as it debated secession from the Union on the eve of the Civil War. He was a southerner who lived much of his life elsewhere—in Europe, Mexico, South America, and Washington, DC. In his time, he was the subject of newspaper articles, presidential correspondence, diplomatic memos, and congressional proceedings. A eulogist credited him with “sav[ing] the country” from disunion over a tax crisis; members of the Mexican public lambasted his self-interested interference in local politics.
He worked as a secret agent in South America, ambassador to Mexico, South Carolina state legislator, US congressman, and secretary of war. His three-decade career included military planning for Chilean independence leaders, asserting US commercial interests in Mexico, and advocating the use of federal force against tariff opponents in his home state. All of these activities reflected an emerging form of political economy rooted in opportunism, chauvinism, and international competition. Poinsett personified a type of patriotism that emerged in the decades following the American Revolution, in which statesmen claimed to act in the service of the new American republic by securing economic prosperity and military security.
In many ways, we could call Poinsett a nationalist for his commitment to whiteness, Anglo-American culture, and militarism, but this word is steeped in twentieth-century meaning, and it was not a word that Poinsett or his correspondents used; instead, they used patriotism and patriot often. Early in his career, he used these words most frequently to refer to revolutionaries in South America, equating their independence movements with that of the “patriots” of the American Revolution. Patriotism was a value judgment used to compare individuals’ actions to those of the “patriot Washington”4 and to praise the “military spirit” that marked the “patriotism of the soldiers.” It could also be used to refer to any activity that advanced commercial or national interests, such as when South Carolina botanist Stephen Elliott referred to Amos Eaton’s work on geological surveys as a “patriotic pursuit.” Poinsett’s own friends and allies referred to his patriotism. Fellow Mason, South Carolina slave owner, and unionist Chapman Levy, for example, wrote to Poinsett in reference to his actions during the nullification crisis: “These feelings of high respect and kindness and regard for you, which sunk deep into my bosom in those trying times which evinced your exalted patriotism and devotion to our country, as well as your firmness and talents in its support, has remained unchanged.” And Commissioner of Indian Affairs Thomas Hartley Crawford wrote to Poinsett at the end of Poinsett’s term as secretary of war, “Your administration of the department was in the true spirit of patriotism.” When South Carolinians began seriously debating secession, Poinsett wrote that at least the “fanatics of the north” had “patriotism” and an “attachment to the union.”9 Finally, nine years before South Carolina’s threats became reality, Poinsett’s tombstone proclaimed his life and death as those of “a pure patriot, an honest man, and a good Christian.”
Poinsett matters, but not because he was “a pure patriot, an honest man,” or “a good Christian.”10 He was never fully any of those things. He matters because he embodied the contradictions and inconsistencies at the heart of the American experiment. He was born in South Carolina while it fought for independence from Great Britain, and he died as it debated secession from the Union on the eve of the Civil War. He was a southerner who lived much of his life elsewhere—in Europe, Mexico, South America, and Washington, DC. In his time, he was the subject of newspaper articles, presidential correspondence, diplomatic memos, and congressional proceedings. A eulogist credited him with “sav[ing] the country” from disunion over a tax crisis; members of the Mexican public lambasted his self-interested interference in local politics.
Cuprins
Introduction
Chapter 1 Founding a Man, 1779–1810
Chapter 2 International and Domestic Politics, 1811–1819
Chapter 3 Domestic and International Politics, 1820–1825
Chapter 4 Interest in Mexico, 1825–1830
Chapter 5 Southern “Honor,” 1830–1836
Chapter 6 War, 1837–1841
Chapter 7 Final Battles, 1841–1851
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Index
Chapter 1 Founding a Man, 1779–1810
Chapter 2 International and Domestic Politics, 1811–1819
Chapter 3 Domestic and International Politics, 1820–1825
Chapter 4 Interest in Mexico, 1825–1830
Chapter 5 Southern “Honor,” 1830–1836
Chapter 6 War, 1837–1841
Chapter 7 Final Battles, 1841–1851
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Index
Recenzii
“Scholars of US foreign policy have longed for a biography of Joel Poinsett, the diplomat, secret agent, and legislator who actively shaped US–Latin American relations for three crucial decades in the early nineteenth century. Lindsay Schakenbach Regele’s marvelous new study more than meets the task, not only revealing the extensive scope of his influence at home and abroad but also making an important argument about the evolution of early American political economy.”
"A revealing if at times critical biographical study that highlights the role of economic interests in early 19th-century foreign relations."
"For historians of Mexico and Latin America more generally, one of the book’s virtues is that it places Poinsett firmly in the US political and social context rather than reducing him to the role of a pathogen set loose in early Mexican political life."