The Red River Expedition, also known as the Freeman–Custis Expedition, Freeman Red River Expedition, Sparks Expedition, and officially Exploring Expedition of Red River, was one of the first civilian scientific expeditions to explore the Southwestern United States. The 1806 expedition was ordered to find the headwaters of the Red River (Red River of the South) from the Mississippi River as a possible trading route to Santa Fe, which was then under Spanish colonial control in New Mexico; 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 officials intercepted the expedition 615 miles upriver, in what is now northeastern Texas, and turned it back before the party had achieved all of its goals.
Planning The third US President, Thomas Jefferson, ranked the Red River Expedition in importance second 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 in 1803, 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 southwestern and western borders 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, who was the first academically-trained naturalist to accompany an expedition, was still a medical student in Philadelphia, and 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. President 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 the United Kingdom and France accepted the proposal, but Spain objected, as it also still claimed the lands to be explored, which it had just been forced to turn the Louisiana territories over briefly to Napoleon Bonaparte, who had suddenly unexpectedly turned and sold the vast interior continental lands to the Americans the year before. Spain did not want an armed military expedition within or near its remaining territory.
Expedition
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