Southern Counterpart to Lewis & Clark: The Freeman & Custis Expedition of 1806 by Dan L. Flores

The story of the Freeman and Custis expedition as told through primary documents, including maps, illustrations and natural history observations. Softcover, 386 pages, 6" X 9", ISBN 978-0-8061-1941-0.

In 1806 President Thomas Jefferson sent an expedition to explore the southern area of the Louisiana Purchase to the Rocky Mountains. Led by engineer and surveyor Thomas Freeman and botanist Peter Custis and assisted by the celebrated "bush fighter" Capt. Richard Sparks, the expedition failed when they were stopped by a Spanish army in the vicinity of what is today southeastern Oklahoma.

 

The expedition was orginally charged with the task of charting the entire lengths of both the Red and the Arkansas Rivers. The scope of the expedition was limited at the last minute by exploring and charting only the Red River but failed at that also. Only four months into the journey and having covered only roughly half of the Red, the expedition was halted and turned around by a Spanish army four times its size.

 

Nevertheless, in those four short months, important observations and information was gleaned about the American Southwest. The work of Peter Custis, the first American trained naturalist to explore the West, provides us with invaluable information regarding the plant and animal life in the West at that time and gives us a gauge for comparison today.