Both Halevy's Jaguarita l'Indienne and The Desert Flower probably owe their origins to the factual account by Captain John Gabriel Stedman of his adventures in Surinam/Dutch Guiana, titled The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796).

A contemporary review pronounced the songs "pretty" and the music "pleasing" but noted that "there are no passages which, by their brilliancy and sweetnesss, raise the work to the heights which the composer has achieved in some of his former operas.

[2] The Desert Flower received its US premiere at New York's Academy of Music on 12 January 1868 with Caroline Richings as Oanita and William Castle as Captain Maurice.

Wilhelm Kuhe[4] composed a Fantasia for piano based on its score, and in 1867 its main arias and duets were published as parlour songs in The Vocal Gems of William Vincent Wallace's Romantic Opera The Desert Flower.

The opera is based in Surinam/Dutch Guiana, where the Dutch settlers are under attack by the local Anakawtas Indian tribe, led by their beautiful queen, Oanita, and her henchman and admirer, Casgan.