ABSTRACT
The South American Commission of 1817-1818 was the occasion for the first botanical exploration in South America by a trained United States botanist, and it aroused much interest in the introduction of seeds and plants from South America. These botanical and horticultural achievements have been overlooked in the published histories of the Commission, even though they have been more lasting than the political results of the Commission’s activities.1 Actually, the Commission had
1 The fullest secondary accounts of the Commission are Watt Stewart, “ The South American Commission, 1817-1818,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 9:31-59 (Feb. 1929); A. P. Whitaker, United States and the Independence of Latin America, 1800-1830 (Baltimore, 1941), 229-243, 248-253; E. Pereira Salas, La Misión Bland en Chile (Santiago, Chile, 1936); and Laura Bornholdt, Baltimore and Early Pan-American-
little immediate influence on the policies of either the United States or foreign governments toward the South American revolutionists.2
