Henry Mower Rice

Henry Mower Rice in 1863. Rice was the archetypal "Moccasin Democrat," emerging from the fur trade as a capable and often unscrupulous treaty negotiator and politician. Rice authored the bill enabling Minnesota's statehood, became its first senator, and was instrumental in the development in St. Paul. At the same time, he used his position to enrich his friends from the fur trade and railroads through land speculation, often at the expense of the indigenous people who launched his career in the first place.