Henry M. Rice

Henry Mower Rice (November 29, 1816 – January 15, 1894) was a fur trader and an American politician prominent in the statehood of Minnesota.

Early life

Henry Rice was born on November 29, 1816, in Waitsfield, Vermont to Edmund Rice and Ellen (Durkee) Rice. Both Edmund and Ellen were of entirely English ancestry; their ancestors had been in New England since the early 1600s. Rice lived with family friends from an early age due to the death of his father.

When Rice was 18, he moved to Detroit, Michigan, and participated in the surveying of the canal route around the rapids of Sault Ste. Marie between Lake Superior and Lake Huron.

In 1839 Rice secured a job at Fort Snelling, near what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota. He became a fur trader with the Ho-Chunk and Chippewa (Ojibwe) Indians, attaining a position of prominence and influence. Rice was trusted by the Indians, and he was instrumental in negotiating the United States treaty with the Ojibwe Indians in 1847 by which they ceded extensive lands.

Political career

Rice lobbied for the bill to establish Minnesota Territory in 1849 and later served as its delegate to the 33rd and 34th Congresses from March 4, 1853, to March 4, 1857. In 1856, he was charged with corruption, regarding potentially illegal use of Rice's influence in government to acquire land. He was not expelled. His work on the Minnesota Enabling Act, passed by Congress on February 26, 1857, facilitated Minnesota's statehood.

Henry Rice was a Democrat in the wing of the Minnesota Democratic party sometimes referred to at the time as "Moccasin Democrats" because of his affiliation with the fur trade and the supplying of Indian Agency contracts. He and his one-time partner trader Henry H. Sibley, also a Democrat, had a falling out in 1849 and thereafter were political rivals, Sibley being part of the non-Rice wing of the party.