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Counties and a good portion of Montague County. In order that we may more clearly understand the reason for this, it is believed that whereas the northern boundary line of Texas as between the Spaniards and the French had never definitely been located it was the neutral strip east of Nacogdoches, which was a large section of territory that remained out of the jurisdiction of either the French or Spanish for a period of nearly a hundred years. While this section, comprising a large portion of the Red River Valley, was not included in the neutral strip proper, yet it, too, remained to itself and sufficient unto itself without State or National Government for a long period of time. Following up the colonization of the North American Continent, you will recall La Salle's trip from Canada down the Illinois River into the Mississippi. In the presence of a few of his associates and quite a large number of the American aborigines, he took possession of all the lands drained by the waters of the Mississippi and the Red River and their tributaries in the name of, and for his King, Louis XIV of France. This, of course, was the French reason for laying claim to this vast Red River Section. These aborigines were the Indians known later as the Caddoes, which tribe boasted to be the true friends of the white men, and that they had never spilled the blood of a white man. These Indians, chiefly no doubt, were the ones who witnessed the theft of their country by La Salle and the French king,

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The History of Clarksville and Old Red River County Pat B. Clark   1937