Joel R. Poinsett (born March 2, 1779, Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.—died December 12, 1851, near Statesburg, South Carolina) was an American statesman noted primarily for his diplomacy in Latin America. A fervent liberal, he frequently meddled in the affairs of Latin American nations, incurring their animosity by his misdirected good intentions.
The son of a prominent South Carolina physician, Poinsett was educated in the United States and England and then traveled for seven years in Europe and western Asia. Returning home to serve in the approaching war with England, he was instead appointed the special agent for the United States in Buenos Aires and Chile in 1810. Although he initiated diplomatic and commercial relations with those territories, he also supported the nascent revolutionary forces there.
After serving in the South Carolina legislature (1816–20), Poinsett was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1820. He interrupted his legislative career to go on a special mission to Mexico in 1822 and 1823, publishing an account of his experiences in Notes on Mexico in 1824. In 1825 he became the first U.S. minister to Mexico, a post he held until 1829. Deeply involved in Mexican politics, he finally became persona non grata to the Mexican government. The Mexicans even coined the word poinsettismo to characterize his officious and intrusive behaviour.
In 1830 Poinsett became a leader of the Unionist Party in South Carolina, a group that opposed the doctrine of nullification, which held that the individual states have the right to set aside any federal law that violates their compact in the U.S. Constitution. As a reward for those services, President Martin Van Buren appointed him secretary of war in 1837. He used his position to authorize an expedition in 1838, led by French scientist Joseph Nicholas Nicollet with the assistance of American explorer and military officer John C. Frémont, to survey and map the region between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Poinsett also authorized an expedition by the explorer Charles Wilkes that reached Antarctica and sailed through the South Pacific Ocean and along the western coast of North America. Poinsett served until 1841 and then retired to his plantation in South Carolina, where he opposed the growing secessionist movement in his state.
An accomplished amateur botanist, Poinsett brought a flower from Mexico that was renamed the poinsettia in his honour. He was instrumental in founding the National Institute for the Promotion of Science and the Useful Arts, a precursor of the Smithsonian Institution.