A Little More About Joel Poinsett-- Part 3

In a new biography on Joel Poinsett, "Flowers, Guns and Money," author Lindsay Schakenbach describes him as a cosmopolitan, political and economic pragmatist who conspired with a Chilean independence leader and colluded with British bankers in Mexico.

Though he was a slaveowner, he opposed secession and he didn't live to see the Civil War.

As far as the removal of Indigenous people is concerned,"...because Poinsett belonged to learned societies, contributed to botanists collections and purchased art from Europe, he could more readily justify the expulsion of native from their homes," she writes.

--Cooter