Albert Pourtalès

Albert Alexander, Graf von Pourtalès (10 September 1812 – 18 December 1861), was a Prussian diplomat and leading representative of the Wochenblatt Party.

Early life Pourtalès was born on 10 September 1812 in Paris into a family descended from French Huguenots that had first been ennobled under King Frederick II in 1750. He was a son of Count Friedrich von Pourtalès (1779–1861), Privy Councilor and Prussian Master of Ceremonies, and Louise de Castellane-Norante (1793–1881), the daughter of the French Lt.-Col. Michel Ange Boniface, Marquis de Castellane-Norante. His brother, Wilhelm von Pourtalès, was the father of Friedrich von Pourtalès. On the boat ride to the U.S. they became friends with writer Washington Irving, with whom they would travel for the next six months. The three then visited New England, the White Mountains, and Niagara Falls. Soon after, they met Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, who brought them to Missouri, Arkansas Territory, and what is now Oklahoma to see lands claimed by the U.S. to be set aside for displaced Native nations after the Indian Removal Act.

Using the La Trobe house in Baltimore as a base, Charles and Pourtalès visited every U.S. state except Alabama. The two visited effigy mounds, the imprisoned Sauk leader Black Hawk twice, and attended the powwows and treaty negotiations of the Powatomi in Chicago. During their travels, Pourtalès wore moccasins, smoked kinnikinnick, and delighted in witnessing indigenous activities including lacrosse games. He also engaged in sex tourism with Native women, in order to "sow his wild oats in a foreign country", often indulging in indigenous customs to win sexual favors. In 1833, they visited Fort Snelling and Minnehaha Falls in Dakota territory, some of the first white tourists to do so. Pourtalès and La Trobe also visited Mexico before returning to Europe.

During the Crimean War, Pourtalès advocated that Prussia should bind itself to Great Britain and France in an attempt to achieve a stronger position for Prussia vis-à-vis Russia in foreign policy and to strengthen liberal currents in domestic policy. During the war he was sent on a diplomatic mission to London in 1853. There he tried to represent the Prussian policy of "active neutrality". Since the approach was clearly directed against Austria-Hungary, it ultimately failed.

Pourtalès belonged to the Prussian House of Lords.

Personal life In 1847, Pourtalès married Anna von Bethmann-Hollweg (1827–1892) in Bonn, a daughter of the lawyer and Minister Moritz August von Bethmann-Hollweg. The couple had two daughters:

Elizabeth von Pourtalès (1847–1866), who died unmarried. Konstanze Josephine Mathilde Wilhelmine Helene von Pourtalès (1849–1940), who married the painter Count Ferdinand von Harrach in 1868.

Pourtalès died in Paris on 18 December 1861.