Red River expedition
Nicholas King’s map of the Freeman-Custis expedition of 1806, with the 1976 overlay by E.M. Parker. (LSU) In 1806, President Thomas Jefferson instructed Peter Custis and Thomas Freeman to find the source of the Red River as part of a Corps of Discovery for the Louisiana Purchase. Spanish troops stopped them in today’s Bowie County (TX)/ McCurtain County (OK) at the Spanish Bluffs. That same year, Nicholas King drew a map of the expedition’s rather short journey, which was pu