Henry M. Teller

Henry Moore Teller was an American politician from Colorado, serving as a US senator between 18761882 and 18851909, 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 SpanishAmerican War, the U.S. would not annex Cuba rather that the purpose of their involvement would be to help it gain independence from Spain.

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 1863 to 1865. 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 ga

Source: Wikipedia