General James Watson Webb (February 8, 1802 – June 7, 1884) was an American diplomat, newspaper publisher and a New York politician in the Whig and Republican parties.

Schoolcraft, historian of the trip, said Webb and his men were returning to Fort Gratiot, a frontier outpost, with a boat full of freshly harvested watermelon.

That same year he recycled or invented extravagant rumors of miscegenation, that the abolitionists had counselled their daughters to marry blacks, and Lewis Tappan had divorced his wife to marry a black woman, and that the Presbyterian minister Henry Ludlow was conducting interracial marriages, which fueled the organized mob violence of New York's anti-abolitionist riots that June.

According to biographer Glyndon Van Deusen, "Webb, an inveterate beggar for office, wanted a diplomatic appointment that would be lucrative.

"[5] Shortly afterward, Webb was appointed minister to Brazil and served in that position for eight years, resigning when he was accused of extorting a large sum of money from the Brazilian government.

At Paris in 1864, Webb claimed he was instrumental to negotiating a secret treaty with Emperor Napoleon III for the removal of French troops from Mexico.