Henry Moore Teller (May 23, 1830February 23, 1914) was an American politician from Colorado, serving as a U.S. senator between 1876–1882 and 1885–1909, also serving as Secretary of the Interior between 1882 and 1885. He strongly opposed the Dawes Act, intended to break up communal Native American lands and force assimilation of the people, accurately stating that it was directed at forcing the Indians to give up their land so that it could be sold to white settlers. Among his most prominent achievements was authoring the Teller Amendment which definitively stated that, following the Spanish–American War, the United States would not annex Cuba, rather that the purpose of their involvement would be to help it gain independence from Spain.
Biography
Life and early career
Henry Moore Teller was born into a large Methodist family on a farm in Granger, New York, in 1830. Educated at local academies when he was young, he went on to take up teaching in order to pay his way through law school. He interned in the office of Judge Martin Grover of Angelica, New York, and became a lawyer in 1858. Although was admitted to the state bar, he moved to Morrison, Illinois where he practiced law for three years and helped establish the Republican Party of Illinois. Following that, in 1861, Teller set up a law office in Central City, present-day Colorado, where he married Harriet M. Bruce and had two sons and a daughter. During that time, Teller also served as major general of Colorado militia from 1864 to 1867. In 1865, Teller was one of the chief organizers of the Colorado Central Railroad, writing its original charter and becoming its president for five years. Afterwards, until Colorado achieved statehood, Teller continued work as a corporate attorney, where he would gain enough prominence to be admitted to its upcoming Senate.
Politics
Following Colorado's admission to the Union in 1876, Teller was elected by state legislature to be a U.S. senator. He served a brief three-month term, and was then elected for his first full six-year term, going on to be re-elected three more times and representing Colorado in the Senate for over 25 years. In 1882, President Chester Arthur named Teller secretary of the interior after Samuel Kirkwood resigned on April 17 of that year. As interior secretary, Teller had oversight of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and vigorously opposed the allotment of Indian lands. However, as bimetallism increasingly fell out of national politics, the party lost much of its influence, and many Silver Republicans returned to the Republican Party. Unlike them, however, Teller never returned to the Republican Party.
left|thumb|150px|Henry Moore Teller
With the decline of the Silver Republican organization, Teller served as Colorado's Democratic senator for the remainder of the time until 1909. Teller helped the Democratic Party gain more power in Colorado, which was previously dominated by Republicans.
During the Spanish–American War, Teller gained national prominence for influencing the creation of the Teller Amendment, an amendment to the Joint Resolution for the war with Spain, passed by the House and Senate on April 19, 1898.
After 33 years of service and retiring from Senate in 1909, Teller returned to practicing law in Colorado for the remainder of his life.
Teller died on February 23, 1914, and he is buried at Fairmount Cemetery in Denver.</blockquote>
Teller would be proven correct. Land owned by natives decreased from in 1887 to in 1934.
As Secretary of the Interior with oversight over the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Teller also had a lot to do with reforming Native American schools. However, Teller's defense of indigenous land rights conflicts with his stance against traditional American Indian customs. For instance, in 1883 he approved the Indian Religious Crimes Code, codified by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Hiram Price, which sought to prohibit Native American traditional ceremonial activity throughout the United States. Customs, dances, plural marriage, and other practices were to be prosecuted by a "Court of Indian Offenses," with authority to impose penalties of up to 90 days imprisonment and withholding government rations. The intent of the Code was to eliminate traditional Native American culture on reservations, however the Five Civilized Tribes were exempt from the code. Secretary Teller installed indigenous judges to prosecute any Native Americans involved in the "immoral" dances, in addition to polygamy, and the sale of Native American wives. White missionaries, educators, and the federal government feared that the traditional dances were war dances, especially the Sun Dance by the Sioux, in which young men tested themselves in painful displays. Such suppressive measures against indigenous culture were finally repealed by Commissioner John Collier in 1934. </blockquote>
With such in mind, the fourth resolution of what would come to be known collectively as the Teller Amendment echoed this resolve. Henry M. Teller would later gain national recognition for his stance in Cuban affairs, and the political atmosphere following its approval became directed towards diplomacy assuring Cuban independence. However, this would be undermined by the later Platt Amendment until its abrogation in 1934.
Chinese Immigration
Teller supported the passage of the Scott Act of 1888, a bill which further cemented the exclusion of Chinese laborers from the U.S. first legislated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. He is quoted as saying of the act, "There are now about one hundred thousand Chinese who have come into this country, and I myself will welcome any legislation that shall deport every single one of them from the United States and send them back to China, where they belong."
See also
- List of United States senators who switched parties
- George Turner (U.S. politician)
- Teller Amendment
- Silver Republican Party
- Cuban War of Independence
- Spanish–American War
- Teller County, Colorado