Red River Expedition (1806)
Encyclopedia
The Red River Expedition, also known as the Freeman-Custis Expedition, Freeman Red River Expedition, Sparks Expedition, or officially as the Exploring Expedition of Red River in 1806, was one of the first civilian scientific expeditions to explore the Southwestern United States
. It was ordered to find the headwaters of the Red River as a possible trading route to Santa Fe
, then under Spanish control; to contact Native American
peoples for trading purposes; to collect data on flora, fauna, and topography, and map the country and river; and to assess the land for settlement. The Spanish intercepted the expedition 615 miles upriver, in what is now northeastern Texas, and turned it back before the party achieved all of its goals.
ranked the Red River Expedition second in importance only to the Lewis and Clark Expedition
to reach the Pacific Ocean through the Northwest
. The Red River stretches west from its confluence with the Mississippi River
across what is now the state of Louisiana
and part of south-western Arkansas
. Further west, the river forms the present-day southern border of Oklahoma
where it meets Texas
, and is now known to originate in the Texas Panhandle
.
After acquiring the lands of the Louisiana Purchase
, Jefferson commissioned military groups to explore the unfamiliar territory and to collect scientific data about flora and fauna, topography, and ethnography of the many Native American
peoples. By sending a group of explorers up the Red River, Jefferson wanted to verify reports that the river could provide a water route to Santa Fe
in New Mexico (then part of New Spain). Other goals were to build trade and political relationships with the various tribes of American Indians, and to locate the Louisiana Purchase’s western border with New Spain.
In 1805 and early 1806, the President began to appoint leaders for the expedition. For the scientists, he chose the astronomer/surveyor Thomas Freeman, (who had recently been with Andrew Ellicott on his survey of the southern boundary of the United States) and Peter Custis (the first academically trained naturalist
to accompany an expedition, he was still a medical student in Philadelphia. He served as the group’s botanist and ethnographer.) Captain Richard Sparks was chosen to lead the military troops. As the departure date of the expedition grew closer, more soldiers were recruited until the group numbered twenty-four in all.
Jefferson persuaded Congress to fund the effort. He worked with foreign diplomats in Washington to convince them that the exploration was for scientific purposes and would not threaten their interests. Both Britain and France accepted the proposal, but Spain objected, as it claimed the lands to be explored. It did not want an armed military expedition within its territory.
from Fort Adams
near Natchez, Mississippi
, and turned into the Red River to go upstream to the west. The group gradually took on soldiers along the route, in response to rumors of a possible attack by Spanish troops, and soon numbered forty-five. By July 28, the party was 615 miles upriver, near what is now New Boston, Texas
, when they heard gunfire in the distance indicating the presence of Spanish troops.
"Hoping to provoke an international confrontation for personal gain," the US Governor James Wilkinson
of the Louisiana Territory
had secretly notified Spain of the Freeman expedition (he had had separate dealings with them earlier), and they sent two teams of soldiers to intercept the party. The Freeman party was stopped at what has since been called "Spanish Bluff" on the river. The Spanish commander and Freeman undertook a parlay. The Spanish said they were ordered to fire on any foreign armed troops passing through Spanish territory. In response, Freeman demanded the Spanish provide their objections to the team's passage in writing and name the authority under which they were taking action. The Spanish commander asked when they were going to start on their return journey. Freeman’s crew was highly outnumbered, and the president had ordered the expedition to avoid any conflict with the Spanish. The expedition turned back on the next day, and returned downriver to its starting point.
The abrupt end of the expedition, and the political embarrassment it caused the Jefferson administration, overshadowed its findings. Over time, it proved to be a success in some aspects. Coupled with Dunbar and Hunter’s expedition in lowland Louisiana, the Red River party demonstrated that exploration of this area was possible; in addition, the scientists reported that the land could support a large population. The border debacle, as it was perceived at the time, received much attention. But, official comments were not taken concerning these events, and a single printed pamphlet was initially the only material published about the journey. Custis' pioneering work in naturalism was not superseded until much later expeditions, but his discoveries became obscured by the more dramatic quantity of material collected by the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
(Jefferson commissioned the Pike expedition
through Wilkinson, which was also to seek the headwaters of the Red River, as well as exploring the West of the Louisiana Territory along the Arkansas River
. Departing from St. Louis in July 1806, the expedition recorded the discovery in November of what became called Pikes Peak
in present-day Colorado. Much of the party, led by Captain Zebulon Pike
, Jr., were captured in February 1807 by the Spanish after having made mistakes in navigation and being forced to winter in New Mexico. Spain protested officially to the US about the military expedition within its territory but, as the nations were not at war, its troops escorted Pike and most of his men to the Louisiana border and released them later that year.)
and Alabama-Quassarte (Coushatta
) villages on the river. Freeman and Custis recorded valuable information about the peoples and ecology of the area. In part because of the diplomatic furor aroused by its interception of the expedition, Spain changed its strategy and opened the Red River country to American traders.
Given the limited duration of the expedition, the scientists gathered little material compared to the major discoveries of Lewis and Clark. But, Freeman's journal and Custis' pioneering natural history report had valuable information about the American Indian
peoples and other aspects of the Red River country. Custis' work was published two decades before the expeditions of Thomas Nutall, Edwin James
and Thomas Say
but it was overlooked for some time.
An American explorer, Randolph B. Marcy
, finally located the headwaters of the Red River in 1852.
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
. It was ordered to find the headwaters of the Red River as a possible trading route to Santa Fe
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
, then under Spanish control; to contact Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
peoples for trading purposes; to collect data on flora, fauna, and topography, and map the country and river; and to assess the land for settlement. The Spanish intercepted the expedition 615 miles upriver, in what is now northeastern Texas, and turned it back before the party achieved all of its goals.
Planning
President Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
ranked the Red River Expedition second in importance only to the Lewis and Clark Expedition
Lewis and Clark Expedition
The Lewis and Clark Expedition, or ″Corps of Discovery Expedition" was the first transcontinental expedition to the Pacific Coast by the United States. Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson and led by two Virginia-born veterans of Indian wars in the Ohio Valley, Meriwether Lewis and William...
to reach the Pacific Ocean through the Northwest
Northwestern United States
The Northwestern United States comprise the northwestern states up to the western Great Plains regions of the United States, and consistently include the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, to which part of southeast Alaska is also sometimes included...
. The Red River stretches west from its confluence with the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
across what is now the state of Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
and part of south-western Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
. Further west, the river forms the present-day southern border of Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
where it meets Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, and is now known to originate in the Texas Panhandle
Texas Panhandle
The Texas Panhandle is a region of the U.S. state of Texas consisting of the northernmost 26 counties in the state. The panhandle is a rectangular area bordered by New Mexico to the west and Oklahoma to the north and east...
.
After acquiring the lands of the Louisiana Purchase
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of America of of France's claim to the territory of Louisiana in 1803. The U.S...
, Jefferson commissioned military groups to explore the unfamiliar territory and to collect scientific data about flora and fauna, topography, and ethnography of the many Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
peoples. By sending a group of explorers up the Red River, Jefferson wanted to verify reports that the river could provide a water route to Santa Fe
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
in New Mexico (then part of New Spain). Other goals were to build trade and political relationships with the various tribes of American Indians, and to locate the Louisiana Purchase’s western border with New Spain.
In 1805 and early 1806, the President began to appoint leaders for the expedition. For the scientists, he chose the astronomer/surveyor Thomas Freeman, (who had recently been with Andrew Ellicott on his survey of the southern boundary of the United States) and Peter Custis (the first academically trained naturalist
Naturalist
Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...
to accompany an expedition, he was still a medical student in Philadelphia. He served as the group’s botanist and ethnographer.) Captain Richard Sparks was chosen to lead the military troops. As the departure date of the expedition grew closer, more soldiers were recruited until the group numbered twenty-four in all.
Jefferson persuaded Congress to fund the effort. He worked with foreign diplomats in Washington to convince them that the exploration was for scientific purposes and would not threaten their interests. Both Britain and France accepted the proposal, but Spain objected, as it claimed the lands to be explored. It did not want an armed military expedition within its territory.
Expedition
On April 19, 1806 the now 24-member party (Freeman and his two assistants; Sparks, who commanded the military party, with two officers, seventeen privates, and a servant) pushed off in two flat-bottomed barges and a piroguePirogue
A pirogue is a small, flat-bottomed boat of a design associated particularly with the Cajuns of the Louisiana marsh. In West Africa they were used as traditional fishing boats. These boats are not usually intended for overnight travel but are light and small enough to be easily taken onto land...
from Fort Adams
Fort Adams
Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island, was established on July 4, 1799 as a First System coastal fortification. Its first commander was Captain John Henry who was later instrumental in starting the War of 1812.-History:...
near Natchez, Mississippi
Natchez, Mississippi
Natchez is the county seat of Adams County, Mississippi, United States. With a total population of 18,464 , it is the largest community and the only incorporated municipality within Adams County...
, and turned into the Red River to go upstream to the west. The group gradually took on soldiers along the route, in response to rumors of a possible attack by Spanish troops, and soon numbered forty-five. By July 28, the party was 615 miles upriver, near what is now New Boston, Texas
New Boston, Texas
New Boston is a city in Bowie County, Texas, United States. It was named after an early store keeper, W.J. Boston. It is part of the Texarkana, Texas - Texarkana, Arkansas Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:...
, when they heard gunfire in the distance indicating the presence of Spanish troops.
"Hoping to provoke an international confrontation for personal gain," the US Governor James Wilkinson
James Wilkinson
James Wilkinson was an American soldier and statesman, who was associated with several scandals and controversies. He served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, but was twice compelled to resign...
of the Louisiana Territory
Louisiana Territory
The Territory of Louisiana or Louisiana Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 4, 1805 until June 4, 1812, when it was renamed to Missouri Territory...
had secretly notified Spain of the Freeman expedition (he had had separate dealings with them earlier), and they sent two teams of soldiers to intercept the party. The Freeman party was stopped at what has since been called "Spanish Bluff" on the river. The Spanish commander and Freeman undertook a parlay. The Spanish said they were ordered to fire on any foreign armed troops passing through Spanish territory. In response, Freeman demanded the Spanish provide their objections to the team's passage in writing and name the authority under which they were taking action. The Spanish commander asked when they were going to start on their return journey. Freeman’s crew was highly outnumbered, and the president had ordered the expedition to avoid any conflict with the Spanish. The expedition turned back on the next day, and returned downriver to its starting point.
The abrupt end of the expedition, and the political embarrassment it caused the Jefferson administration, overshadowed its findings. Over time, it proved to be a success in some aspects. Coupled with Dunbar and Hunter’s expedition in lowland Louisiana, the Red River party demonstrated that exploration of this area was possible; in addition, the scientists reported that the land could support a large population. The border debacle, as it was perceived at the time, received much attention. But, official comments were not taken concerning these events, and a single printed pamphlet was initially the only material published about the journey. Custis' pioneering work in naturalism was not superseded until much later expeditions, but his discoveries became obscured by the more dramatic quantity of material collected by the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
(Jefferson commissioned the Pike expedition
Pike expedition
The Pike Expedition was a military effort authorized by the United States government to explore the south and west of the recent Louisiana Purchase. Roughly contemporaneous with the Lewis and Clark Expedition, it was led by United States Army Captain Zebulon Pike, Jr...
through Wilkinson, which was also to seek the headwaters of the Red River, as well as exploring the West of the Louisiana Territory along the Arkansas River
Arkansas River
The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. The Arkansas generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's initial basin starts in the Western United States in Colorado, specifically the Arkansas...
. Departing from St. Louis in July 1806, the expedition recorded the discovery in November of what became called Pikes Peak
Pikes Peak
Pikes Peak is a mountain in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, west of Colorado Springs, Colorado, in El Paso County in the United States of America....
in present-day Colorado. Much of the party, led by Captain Zebulon Pike
Zebulon Pike
Zebulon Montgomery Pike Jr. was an American officer and explorer for whom Pikes Peak in Colorado is named. As a United States Army captain in 1806-1807, he led the Pike Expedition to explore and document the southern portion of the Louisiana Purchase and to find the headwaters of the Red River,...
, Jr., were captured in February 1807 by the Spanish after having made mistakes in navigation and being forced to winter in New Mexico. Spain protested officially to the US about the military expedition within its territory but, as the nations were not at war, its troops escorted Pike and most of his men to the Louisiana border and released them later that year.)
Results
In present-day Louisiana and Arkansas, the expedition established positive relations with the CaddoCaddo
The Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is now East Texas, northern Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Today the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is a cohesive tribe with its capital at Binger, Oklahoma...
and Alabama-Quassarte (Coushatta
Coushatta
----The Coushatta are a historic Muskogean-speaking Native American people living primarily in the U.S. state of Louisiana. When first encountered by Europeans, they lived in the territory of present-day Georgia and Alabama...
) villages on the river. Freeman and Custis recorded valuable information about the peoples and ecology of the area. In part because of the diplomatic furor aroused by its interception of the expedition, Spain changed its strategy and opened the Red River country to American traders.
Given the limited duration of the expedition, the scientists gathered little material compared to the major discoveries of Lewis and Clark. But, Freeman's journal and Custis' pioneering natural history report had valuable information about the American Indian
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
peoples and other aspects of the Red River country. Custis' work was published two decades before the expeditions of Thomas Nutall, Edwin James
Edwin James (scientist)
Edwin James was a 19th-century American botanist, geographer and geologist who explored the American West. James completed the first recorded ascent of Pikes Peak....
and Thomas Say
Thomas Say
Thomas Say was an American naturalist, entomologist, malacologist, herpetologist and carcinologist. A taxonomist, he is often considered to be the father of descriptive entomology in the United States. He described more than 1,000 new species of beetles and over 400 species of insects of other...
but it was overlooked for some time.
An American explorer, Randolph B. Marcy
Randolph B. Marcy
Randolph Barnes Marcy was a career officer in the United States Army, achieving the rank of Brigadier General before retiring in 1881. Although beginning in 1861 his responsibilities were those of a brigadier general, the U.S...
, finally located the headwaters of the Red River in 1852.
Further reading
- Flores, Dan L., ed. Jefferson & Southwestern Exploration: The Freeman & Custis Accounts of the Red River Expedition of 1806 Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984. ISBN 0806117486
- Flores, Dan L. "Spanish Bluff". Texas Handbook Online,s.v. (accessed January 1, 2007)
- Harbour, Emma Estill. "A Brief History of the Red River Country Since 1803", Oklahoma Chronicles 16:1 (March 1938) 58-88, Oklahoma State Library, (accessed December 24, 2006)