Captain Richards Sparks
May 3, 1806, a force of
twenty-four people, including twenty soldiers, under the command of Captain
Richards Sparks, 2d U. S. Infantry, attempted to ascend the Red River in
boats on an exploring expedition, it being the intention to visit the country
of the Pawnee Pique (Wichita) Indians. Unfortunately, about the time
the Sparks party reached that part of the Red River which now forms the
southern boundary of Oklahoma, it was met by a large force of Spanish troops
under Capt. Francisco Viana, which opposed its further progress and the
expedition had to be abandoned.
Captain Sparks was a veteran of
the Revolution and had been an officer in the regular army from the time of
its organization in 1791. He reached the grade of colonel in 1812 and
died in 1815.
Source: A
History of Oklahoma by Joseph B. Throburn and Isaac M.
Holcomb, Doub and Company San Francisco 1908.
|
