Edmund Roberts

author

Edmund Roberts

1784–1836

An early American envoy who carried U.S. diplomacy far beyond the Atlantic, he helped open formal relations with Siam and Muscat in the 1830s. His life mixed merchant ambition, hazardous sea travel, and the rough beginnings of American diplomacy in Asia.

1 Audiobook

Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and Muscat In the U. S. Sloop-of-war Peacock, David Geisinger, Commander, During the Years 1832-3-4

Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and Muscat In the U. S. Sloop-of-war Peacock, David Geisinger, Commander, During the Years 1832-3-4

by Edmund Roberts

About the author

Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1784, Edmund Roberts began as a merchant and sea captain before moving into public service. President Andrew Jackson appointed him as a special agent, and he became known as the first U.S. envoy sent to the Far East on a diplomatic mission.

Traveling aboard the USS Peacock, Roberts negotiated some of the United States' earliest commercial treaties with Asian and Middle Eastern states, including Siam and Muscat and Oman. He also attempted to reach Cochin-China, showing how ambitious and uncertain American diplomacy still was in the 1830s.

Roberts died in Macau in 1836, before completing all of the work he had been sent to do. Even so, he is remembered as an important figure in the first phase of U.S. relations with Asia and the Indian Ocean world.