Joel Roberts Poinsett

Poinsett was a statesman who was connected to some very important moments in our nation’s history, with mixed results. He’s also credited with introducing the holiday plant named after him – the poinsettia – into the U.S. from Mexico. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So, if
you live in or have visited Greenville or Charleston, South Carolina,

(00:22):
odds are pretty good that you maybe have seen a
historical marker here or there that honors Joel points Set
or visited one of the many places that bear his name.
He was a statesman who was connected to some really
important moments in our nation's history. But uh, he was
of course also human, and not all of his actions

(00:42):
really look so noble upon closer inspection. Uh. It's very
very interesting reading histories that involve him, because some of
the ones written closer to when he lived are very
a brilliant And as we get farther and farther out
on the timeline, people start to see the bigger picture
and how impacted things and they get a little more oops, Uh,

(01:02):
there were some problems. Here's so great a right. Point
Set is also credited with introducing the holiday plant named
after him. The point setia into the US from Mexico.
So this is a bit of a holiday episode, and
it's actually kind of a case of two parts biography
and then the last part will be holiday horticulture. And
because of that holiday connection, we should also mention that

(01:26):
this episode is sponsored by FedEx, who asked to sponsor
one of our holiday episodes this year. So, Joel Roberts
point Set was born into a wealthy family in Charleston,
South Carolina, on March second, seventeen seventy nine. He was
a descendant of Pierre point Set and Sarah Foucherrou, who
had established the family in the colonial southern what would

(01:48):
be the US in the sixteen eighties. So even though
he was born when the United States was still in
its infancy as an independent nation, the points that family
had been there for quite a while before that. Yeah,
they were well established, wealthy, known in the community already.
And as a note on place of birth in case

(02:09):
you go digging, I did find one family genealogy right
up that mentioned that point Set was actually born in
London and then naturalized. That doesn't seem to be the case.
Most official sources list Charleston as his place of birth,
although it does appear that the family traveled to London
when Joel was still very very tiny, And I think
that's part of the confusion in any disparate accounts you

(02:30):
might see. His father was Dr Alicia point Set, and
Dr point Set was one of his son's earliest teachers.
Joel's family's wealth enabled him to get really a lot
of education. After his private tutoring as a young boy,
he went on to Greenfield, Connecticut, where he was educated
by the Reverend Dr Timothy Dwight the Fourth, who would

(02:52):
eventually become president of Yale College. And Joel, being born
in the south, found the climate in Connecticut to be unpleasant.
One biography that I looked at, written in the late
eighteen eighties, indicates that he was often ill because of
the cold weather in Connecticut. So after two years there
he returned home to the warmer southern temps, and next

(03:14):
he went on to Saint Paul's School outside of London,
which was run by one of points sets relatives. During
this time he studied classics and languages and became really
multi fluent in a lot of languages. He spoke German, French,
Spanish and Italian. He also picked up a bit of
Russian as well. Next, he moved on some medical school
in Edinburgh, Scotland, although once again, the weather and the

(03:37):
effort of his studies led to some difficulties with his health.
He took a sojourn to Portugal and then finally landed
at a military school in Woolwich, England. It's kind of
seems like he was a little bit unfocused, but he
really responded to the military school and he decided that
that would be his life's career. That did not go
over well with his dad. Doctor point Set did not

(04:00):
want his son to be a soldier. Uh and after
some back and forth, it was decided that Joel would
go back home to South Carolina and study law, and
that lasted for a year before points That decided that
that was also a path that was simply not for him.
When he was finished with formal education, points That traveled
the globe for seven years, primarily in Europe and Western Asia.

(04:25):
Two years into these travels, his father died and left
him a significant fortune that left him in this enviable
situation of really having no urgency for choosing his life's vocation.
His wealth and his linguistic skills made him a source
of fascination wherever he traveled, and he was able to
meet heads of state and basically hang out with the

(04:47):
highest rungs of society on his journeys. Points That did
eventually return to the US and though he thought he
would finally pursue a military career, in eighteen ten, he
was given an appointment as a special agent in Chile
and Argentina, working for President Madison. And this work was
investigative in nature. He was kind of undercover. He was

(05:08):
to study the revolutionary endeavors in those places and in
other South American countries as they made moves to gain
independence from Spain. Part of the reason that points That
was given this job was because he was well known
at the time for his extensive studies abroad. Most people
believed that he had an unsurpassed knowledge of European politics,

(05:29):
especially as it related to intentions regarding the expansion of
land holdings in North America. Additionally, his lengthy travels after
he left school had, as we mentioned, introduced him to
a lot of leaders in a variety of countries. They
all spoke pretty well of him. For example, Zar Alexander
of Russia is said to have told John Quincy Adams

(05:51):
that points That should be the U. S. Ambassador to Russia.
This appointment and mission to South America came at a
time when Spain's colonies had grown frustrated with being governed
from Europe by Napoleon's brother, Joseph Bonaparte, who Napoleon had
installed as the King of Spain. The US was also
embroiled in the tentions that would lead up to the
War of eighteen twelve with England. Europe was carefully watching

(06:15):
what was happening in North and Central America, and Madison
wanted an expert on all of these moving parts to
figure out the best way through it and hopefully away
to bolster u s territory holdings in the process, points
that supported the revolutionary efforts in Chile and Argentina. Both
from his own personal perspective and at Madison's direction, the

(06:38):
US wanted to establish trade agreements with the provisional governments
of the revolutionaries there. One of the goals was to
exert some influence on them before the British could. The
British also had relationships with these revolutionary governments, and they're
very lucrative ports. So it was u unsurprising, based on
various things we've talked about with US foreign policy, you

(07:00):
that like the US is trying to get there before
anybody else. Yeah, it's kind of like, um, you know,
a precursor to Scramble for Africa just happening in South America.
It's a lot of the same playbook. And in Chile,
points Set became more and more embroiled in the politics there,
even fighting alongside insurgent forces and encouraging them to make

(07:20):
some pretty bold moves in their efforts, which ultimately failed
when the leaders of the movement were captured. Points Set
got to make his way back to the United States.
In eighteen sixteen, points That returned to Charleston and was
voted in as a member of the state House of
Representatives before he even got home, so he had that
job waiting for him when he got back to the state,

(07:41):
and then later he was re elected for a second term.
In eighteen nineteen, he became the president of the South
Carolina Board of Public Works, and it was during his
time in this role that he oversaw some pretty significant
infrastructure developments for South Carolina. So modern day South Carolina's
Secondary State Road forty two actually and as a point
Set project, running from Charleston into North Carolina and creating

(08:05):
one major thoroughfare to replace the need to use several connecting,
smaller roads to make that same route. In eighteen twenty
he became a member of the U. S House of
Representatives and was made part of the Foreign Affairs Committee
because of his background. In eight two points that was
given a mission to travel to Mexico at the behest
of President James Monroe to assess the potential for a

(08:27):
diplomatic relationship between the two nations. Out of this travel,
he published the book Notes on Mexico in eighteen twenty four.
Notes on Mexico contained some really racist rhetoric. Uh, this
is actually pretty unsurprising. Point Set was a slave owner.
He definitely believed that a hierarchy based on race helped

(08:48):
maintain order, and he wrote in his book about Mexico
that the fledgling country was able to function on its own.
He thought it could govern itself, but also thought that
it would do that in the best possible way if
the white Mexicans maintained seats of power. From eight to
eighteen twenty nine, Points That was the first US minister

(09:09):
to Mexico, appointed by John Quincy Adams. This is a
little bit funny because it came from a president that
points that had campaigned against particularly hard. He had been
a staunch supporter of Andrew Jackson in the election. Andrew
Jackson had been offered the Mexico minister post but had
turned it down. Has had a number of other people

(09:30):
before they got too point Set on the list. Yeah,
he's you know, often lauded as this first minister to Mexico,
but it's like, well, but he was like fourth choice. Uh,
we're going to talk about Joel point Sets time in Mexico,
which is a mixed bag, to be sure. But before
we get into that, let's take a little sponsor break.

(09:57):
While Jewel points Set was in Mexico, he became so
well known that his name became a new word points satismo.
To be clear, this is not a word with a
good connotation. It is pejorative. It means someone who is
a snooty butinsky who involves themselves in the affairs of
others and presumes to know better as an outsider than
anyone involved in a situation. And he got that name

(10:20):
because he inserted himself into the goings on of politics
in Mexico, to the point the Mexican government had kind
of just had it with him and he really just
stepped in it right out of the gate. And the
time that he was there, Points that was a member
of the Freemasons, and immediately after he started his position
as Minister Planet Potentiary, several lodges asked for assistance in

(10:41):
getting a charter as a group of York Right Lodges.
He did help them secure that charter in Mexico. At
this time, Freemasonry was akin to political parties, and the
York Right Lodges were reformist. The Scottish righte Lodges were
more conservative. And as a man who was operating as
a US agent in Mexico and helping the York Right Lodges,

(11:03):
which also happened to align more closely with US ideals
at the time and attending their meetings, really points that
was making a very strong political statement. Gonn come back
to the Freemasonry issue in a moment. Oh yes. So
one of points Sets directives in this job was to
try to get Mexico to agree to an alteration of

(11:24):
the terms of the Adams Onnee Treaty of eighteen nine.
That was the treaty between the U S and Spain
that established new boundary lines for each country's claims on
land in North America in the treaty, which will sometimes
also see called the Transcontinental Treaty and sometimes even the
Purchase of Florida, Spain ceded Florida and gave up the
Oregon Country. In an exchange, Spain gained control over Texas

(11:47):
as a very simplified version. And of course the US
wanted some of that land that it had given over
to Spain and the treaty and wanted to get that
land back once the Mexican War of Independence had ended
in Mexico had signed the Declaration of Independence of the
Mexican Empire in September of eighteen twenty one. That offered
an opportunity to rework this whole deal, this time with Mexico.

(12:10):
In eighteen twenty seven, as part of his dogged efforts
to gain more land for the US, points Set was
given authority to make an offer of one million dollars
to Mexico for attractive land bounded by the Rio Grande
north to the Arkansas River. Lucas Alamann, Mexico's secretary of
Foreign affairs turned this offer down. In eighteen twenty eight,

(12:31):
points That signed a treaty with Mexico to accept the
eighteen nineteen boundary line that had been negotiated with Spain
as valid under the Mexican government, although that treaty wasn't
ratified by Mexico for several years. Two point set that
seemed like a pretty minor setback, and because Anglo Americans
were moving into Texas already, he thought that the issue

(12:51):
could be revisited down the road with a case made
that US citizens were already living in this disputed area.
This did ultimately work out, although it did take a while.
Right there's that whole Republic of Texas claiming independence and
then becoming annexed as part of the us UH and
it part of it was that, um there were Anglo

(13:14):
people living there at the time, so a growing power
base for the York Knoes. Those were members of the
York Right Lodges in each election Throughout Point sets time
in Mexico led to a suspicion that there was some
shady and seditious work going on in the societies, and
because he had helped the York Right lodges, point set

(13:35):
was implicated in this suspicion. Points that claimed via a
pamphlet that he did not really understand that this was
the case, and that he thought that the lodges he
helped were just interested in the usual humanitarian work of
the Freemasons. He went on to say that he had
chosen to withdraw from participating in the meetings when he
realized that what was happening with the lodge was that

(13:56):
it was furthering the political interests of its members. And
this is really kind of an interesting case to make
for his innocence in the matter, because in claiming that
he didn't mean to tip the balance of power in
the country where he was assigned because he did not
know that the lodges were political, he's kind of admitting
that he probably didn't really understand his job. It's like,

(14:17):
I didn't know, but aren't you the expert in Mexico
and European relations. Well, I accidentally didn't know what I
was doing in my job. But at the same time, uh,
he was telling a very different story to his bosses
in the US. He actually had written that the work
that he was doing with the Freemasons had been the

(14:38):
best way to counter British influence in Mexico. In seven,
Vice President Nicolas Bravo, in connection with a planned rebellion
put together a four part pronouncement known as the Plan
to Montagno. In it, Bravo stated that secret society should
be prohibited by law. He was himself a Mason of

(15:00):
the Scottish Rite Lodge. Also proclaimed that the president's minister
should be ejected and replaced in the country's constitution of
eighteen twenty four should be enforced, and that Joel points
That should be booted out of the country. Please let
me never be so bad at a job that an
entire country wants to have me removed. Uh. In eighteen
twenty eight, after a long period of tension and part

(15:23):
of this rebellion that we we mentioned this was connected
to and the violence that came with it, General Vicente
Guerrero was elected President of Mexico. Guerrero was a York
right freemason, and point Set was happy with this election outcome.
But Guerrero, even though points Set was kind of an
ally of his, also recognized the Jewel point Set was

(15:44):
a problematic and destabilizing figure in the country. By eighteen
twenty nine, everyone was so irritated with points Set and
that whole situation that Guerrero pressured the U S government
to recall him, which President Andrew Jackson did, and the
man who had been heard to as quote a sagacious
and hypocritical foreign minister, as zealous for the prosperity of

(16:05):
his own country as inimical to ours, was sent home.
Things actually got even worse with the new minister to Mexico,
who was Anthony Butler, but that is outside the scope
of this episode, possibly a future one. In eighteen thirty
is part of a Freemason ceremony in which he was
being honored. Points that stated quote, I have been most
unjustly accused of extending our order and our principles into

(16:28):
a neighboring country, with a view of converting them into
an engine of political influence. I solemnly aver that this
accusation is false and unfounded, and that if Masonry has
anywhere been converted to any other purposes than that for
which it was instituted, I have in no way contributed
to such perversion of its principles. After this point, set

(16:49):
became a major player in the Unionist party in South Carolina.
In eighteen thirty, he was once again elected to the
State House of Representatives. The nullification crisis was brewing during
his time in office, in which John C. Calhoun was
leading a call for the state to nullify the federal
tariffs of eighteen and eighteen thirty two, which, in very
simple terms, favored northern economic stability and heavily taxed southern goods.

(17:15):
Points That worked to keep South Carolina and the Union
keeping Andrew Jackson posted on all the developments as they unfolded.
Jackson made a proclamation to South Carolina in December of
eighteen thirty two, as Calhoun and his supporters were hoping
to get other states to join in their rejection of
the tariffs. Jackson's missive made clear that what they were

(17:35):
trying to do was treason. Ultimately, of course, the Union
remained intact, and in eighteen thirty seven, points Set was
named as Secretary of War by President Martin van Buren,
in part as a reward for his work during the
nullification crisis. In his position on the President's cabinet, point
Set was instrumental in the forced migration of thousands of

(17:56):
Native Americans from their lands under the Indian Removal Act
in eighteen forty points That was one of the founders
of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science this
organization was renamed the National Institution, and under that Moniker
it became the caretaker of artifacts and collections that were
part of a vision that Points that had of the
United States developing museums that were equal to any elsewhere

(18:20):
in the world. This collection grew, and this entity eventually
involved into the Smithsonian Institution. He's such a mixed bag
that Joel point Set. In eighteen forty one, Joel point
Set's position as Secretary of War ended as William Henry
Harrison was inaugurated and he retired. At this point, he
settled in at the family plantation in Charleston, but he

(18:41):
didn't stay entirely out of politics, even though he was
no longer holding office or any kind of position of
prominence officially. This was, of course, twenty years before the U.
S Civil War, and a lot of the issues that
would lead to that conflict were already part of a
very heated debate. As a secessionist movement grew in South Carolina,
Points that was vocally against it. Once again, he used

(19:03):
his influence to keep the union intact. Points That died
on December twelve one of tuberculosis, which was also made
worse by pneumonia and today, as we mentioned at the
top of the episode, there are historical markers dedicated to
points Set throughout South Carolina and the number of places
named after him. In two thousand one, a life size
statue of point Set was placed in front of the

(19:25):
old Greenville Courthouse, and in it he's depicted sitting on
a rectangular base with his hat and coat placed beside him.
People tend to like sit next to him for photo ops.
I have to have seen this and I have no
recollection of it. All right, So now we're going to
talk about the plants that has become so deeply connected

(19:47):
to Christmas and to winter decors that ties into point
Set story. First, we will hear from some sponsors that
keep our show going. Now, since we are headed into
the winter holidays, we wanted to focus a little bit
on Joel point Sets impact on them. We mentioned earlier

(20:11):
that he is credited with bringing the plant that came
to be named after him, the point Setia, into the
US from Mexico, and this happened in when he was
serving as ambassador to Mexico. The point Setia Latin name
Euphorbia pulcaryma is a shrub that normally flowers in the winter.
The blooms kind of in quotation marks, are really modified
leaves that form into little clusters of bracts, and then

(20:34):
the color change in those leaves requires twelve hours of
darkness every day for five consecutive days in order for
that to happen. That is a part of a process
called photo periodism. Once the color change happens, then they
need a lot of sunlight to get to maximum color saturation.
In its native Central American habitat the point, Setia can
grow as tall as ten to fifteen feet that's three

(20:57):
to four and a half meters high, and it's a
perenni shrub. Although a lot of people, I would say,
probably only see them as potted plants around the holidays
if you are not in those areas. Yeah, there are
surprising numbers of things that we see as potted plants
in North America that in Central America and the Caribbean
and the Caribbean are like vegantic. Yeah, I mean even um,

(21:19):
I lived in Arizona when I was very little and
we had pointed is growing in the yard that got
quite big. But like I don't even have a hugely
clear memories of them. I've seen them in pictures. Yeah,
So that mean that's all leads to a question of
how did this plant go from being just a native
plant in Central America to becoming the it flower of

(21:40):
the winter holiday season. While he was traveling in Taxico, Mexico,
southwest of Mexico City, Points that is said to have
encountered this really striking plant. The locals called it la
florida note buena that literally translates to good night flower,
although it has a different meaning that we'll talk about
in just a moment. This plant was well known for

(22:01):
centuries before Points that saw it, with the Nahua people's
name for it catless show cheetle attributed to the plant
all the way back to the Aztecs. The lore there
is that the thread of the flower was associated with
blood sacrifice, and we also know that it was a
highly prized plant in Aztec culture and considered a royal plant.

(22:22):
So even though it didn't have great survival in the
city of Tenochtitlan precursor to Mexico City, my apologies for
that pronunciation. Due to its high altitude, the plants were
regularly brought there from the surrounding areas. That plant, which
Montezuma is said to have been particularly fond of, was
used in religious ceremonies and also in more practical applications.

(22:43):
Pigment extracted from the plants was used in textile dying,
and the sap was believed to have medicinal properties. That
sap can in fact cause an adverse reaction for some
people in the form of a rash or otherwise irritated skin.
That phrase no buena, though, is also used for Christmas Eve,
and the plant has other names in Spanish that translate

(23:04):
to things like fireflower, Christmas Star, and others. So well
before points that encountered it, this plant was already associated
with Christmas, and there is actually a folklore tale that
goes along with the post Aztec Christmas association. This legend
is about a little girl who was very poor, and
she was dismayed as she walked to church because she

(23:24):
had nothing to leave on the altar for the baby Jesus.
She heard the voice of an angel telling her to
take branches from the plants growing by the path where
she walked. The angel, according to the story, had heard
her praying and reassured her that these plants would be
a fine gift to leave on the altar. Some versions
of the story characterize these plants as weeds, others to
talk about them being sort of native flora. But when

(23:45):
the little girl, still crying, place these cuttings on the altar,
her tears transformed them into beautiful red flowers, and these,
according to legend, were the first flores. I feel like
I might have heard a version of the star in church.
Probably points That was interested in botany, and particularly with
the idea of importing plants from other parts of the

(24:08):
world into the US, So when he saw these plants,
he said to have sent some home to South Carolina,
where he already had hot houses. According to legend, he
first spotted them in an activity scene. He tended the
plants that he shipped home and then propagated them, and
as his collection of them started to grow, he shared
them with other plant enthusiasts and his social circle. And

(24:31):
though point Set brought the plants into the country, according
to legend, it was after he shipped some to Philadelphia
that their commercial viability became evident. Shortly after he began
successfully propagating the red and green plants in his greenhouse,
point Set sent some to a friend in Philadelphia named
Colonel Robert Carr. In June nine, Car showed the plant

(24:52):
at a flower show held by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society,
and interest in these beautiful plants was instant among the
hundreds of people who saw it in the show. We
really don't know for sure if that version of events
is true. Any of this movement that happened might have
taken place at points that's direction, but he had not
come back from Mexico yet by June of nine, so

(25:14):
he could not have been physically involved at this stage
of things. There's also a letter written two points that
by one of his friends in eighteen thirty that suggests
that a woman from his hometown of Charleston was quite
missed to have been left out of the plant distribution.
I love this letter a lot. It is so snippy. Yes,

(25:37):
it reads, Mrs Herbemont of Charleston has been very vexed
with you when she learned by the papers that several
northern gardeners had received seeds and plants you had sent
them from that land of vegetable beauties, Mexico, and that
you had not in one instance, remembered her. I know
exactly this type of I was gonna say for anyone

(25:59):
who has never been around an older, assertive Southern woman, yes,
is like the prototype. So it does seem possible that
the points That never made a stop in South Carolina,
but was sent directly to Philadelphia. There's evidence that four
shipments of seeds and plants from Mexico were shipped by
points At to Philadelphia. We don't know for certain if

(26:23):
the plant that came to be known as the point
Setia was among them. He was sending a whole variety
of specimens over the course of his years there. In
some instances, France had visited him in Mexico and carried
seeds back to the US with them, and that also
could have been how the plants were imported. But we
do know that a nurseryman in Philadelphia named Robert Buists

(26:45):
or Whist, I'm not sure the pronunciation, becomes a key
figure in the rise of the point Seti's popularity outside
of Mexico. Buist, who was from Scotland, took a cutting
to Edinburgh, where he shared it with a colleague named
James McNabb. McNabb intern shared the plant with a botanist
in Berlin, Germany named Carl Bilder. Now you'll sometimes see

(27:07):
the points that he and noted as first being identified
in the eighteen thirties, and that appears to be linked
to Bilda now naming it Euphorbia pulcima. Another Scottish botanist,
Robert Graham, tried to change the name to point Setia
pulcrima in eighteen thirty six, and while point Setia stuck
as a common name, Euphorbia polkima remains the plant's official name.

(27:30):
Sometimes there's another Man historian, William Hickling Prescott, who's credited
with honoring points set with the points that he in name,
but it did not appear in Prescott's writing until eighteen
forty three, and that was in the book The History
of the Conquest of Mexico. And today, the cultivation and
sale of point sets are a huge commercial industry. It

(27:51):
is considered one of the most valuable potted flowering plants.
Sometimes you will see it listed as number one on
that list in in the U s alone, it was
s needed to have a wholesale value of one five
million dollars and the US only makes up about one
third of the market for this popular holiday bloom. The
other two thirds is primarily Europe. The largest grower of

(28:13):
points that he is in the world is the Paul
Ecky ranch in California, estimated to produce about fifty of
the plants sold globally each year and seventy of the
points is that are sold in the US. Points That's
legacy as points a Tismo persists, though, especially when it
comes to these plants, there is a belief still among

(28:34):
Mexican gardeners that points set ensured that as the Florida
noche Buena became a lucrative commodity, nobody from its native
country would actually profit from it. There's no evidence of
a patent being filed by points Set or on his behalf,
something that would not have even legally been possible for
plants until decades after his death, but there's a persistent

(28:57):
rumor that he purposely used the Hatton system to put
legal barriers in place to prevent Mexican nurseries from propagating
popular varieties of the point setia for sale. This is
almost certainly born from the fact that he was just
so deeply disliked in Mexico by the time he left.
Starting in the mid nineteenth century, point setia popularity sword

(29:18):
in the United States, establishing it as a standard part
of holiday decor today. There are actually more than one
hundred different points set of varieties, and they come in
a wide range of colors. White, pink, and red are
pretty commonly seen in most nurseries, but they can also
come in yellow, purple, salmon, and even variegated versions. In

(29:38):
the U S, December twelfth as National Points Set, a
day in honor of the anniversary of jewel points That's life. Coincidentally,
this is also the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe,
celebrated in Mexico, which is normally also marked with a
display of points setias. Yeah, so that is jewel points
set in his strange, strange legacy. But also, uh, you

(30:00):
know point set is which I love as a flower. Yeah,
be cautious having them in your house with lots of cats.
We're going to talk about that in the casual Friday
because some of their reputation as super poisonous might be
a little overblown. Yeah, but I think be careful with
all plants around animals because you just never know. That's

(30:21):
that's m hmm. I don't have living plants in my
house for the most part. Um. One of my cats
favorite thing to do now is to shred an African
violet every time she gets the opportunity. I also have
a little bit of listener mail completely unrelated to any
of this. Okay, this is from our listener Michelle, who

(30:42):
was writing about Maria on a Mozart and our our
discussion of her giving up her firstborn son. Sure it's high,
Holly and Tracy, thank you for your podcast. I love
it so much and it's kept me company since I
discovered it in when I broke my back in December
ofen I managed to listen to almost the entire archive
of episodes, which kept me saying while I was lying
in bed healing, Uh, what an honor to be able

(31:04):
to help. I'm so sorry that happened, and glad it
sounds like you are healed up. I just wanted to
drop you a line about your episode Maria on a Mozart.
During it, you mentioned that she gave her baby, Leopold
up to her father just after birth, and during the
behind the scenes about this, you spent a bit of
time discussing this and how it was quote super weird,
which is what I called it. I am from New
Zealand and here the Maori customary practice of I'm going

(31:25):
to guess on this pronunciation wongi is where a child
is raised by someone in their family who is not
their birth parents. Often the first child is given to
the grandparents or the brother or sister of a parent,
particularly if the brother or sister has no children of
their own. There are all sorts of reasons for this,
but one of them is strengthening when now extended family ties.

(31:46):
This was particularly done in the case of Kamatua. I'm
going to apologize again because I know I'm messing up
all of these words. Um, those mean elders. That's the
grandparents in this case taking in a grandchild to pass
down tribal tradition and knowledge. This is not the same
as fostering or adoption. As gan guy children are seen
as a valuable resource and a gift of love. The

(32:08):
entire well being of the group is enhanced by allowing
the child to be raised by who now who have
the resources to meet their needs, and the child is
raised provided knowledge of their birth parents and the entire
extended family is usually involved in their upbringing. In most cases,
the child is placed at birth, but sometimes when they're older,
and this can be for a short period of time
or their entire childhood. She says, I'm paraphrasing a bit

(32:31):
from this research paper which she linked to. When you
talked about Maria Anna giving young Leopold to her father
right after his birth, I immediately associated this with this practice.
I wondered whether Maria Anna had had the same goal
in mind as the practice of when Guy, where she
wanted to strengthen her bond to her father and the
next generation Leopold Jr. To the older Leopold. My guess

(32:53):
is that she knew her father would dote on the child,
and he had better resources in more time to devote
to the child, and she already had five chill you
not own to take care of. And then she sent
some other listening notes. But it's um, it's a cool story.
I like that she shared this with us because it
is like different cultures certainly have different, um different approaches
to this. I think are are like that super weird

(33:15):
is more like in most Anglo European cultures. At that time,
it was definitely considered odd enough that a lot of
people wrote about how strange the situation was. Yeah, it
reminds me a little bit of when we were talking
about um practice babies and yeah, and the focus on
like whether having so many different caregivers and a baby's
life was going to cause problems and how and a

(33:36):
lot of other cultures elsewhere in the world, and also
like within the United States among indigenous cultures, like having
a lot of different caregivers not anything that that's just
how it works. Um. So, yeah, I had sort of
the same thought when I read that email. But it's
also really cool and I didn't I didn't realize how
common that was, certainly in um in Maori culture. It's

(33:58):
a culture I don't know nearly enough about, even though
I find it fascinating. Um and the art that comes
out of it blows my mind in the most beautiful way.
So thank you. Thank you for writing us, Michelle. If
you would like to write to us, you should absolutely
do that. You can do it at History Podcast at
I heart radio dot com. You can also find us
on social media as Missed in History pretty much everywhere,
And if you'd like to subscribe to the show, you

(34:20):
can do that on the I Heart Radio app. At
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