Such, however, was the condition and shape of our frontier settlements during the earlier years of the present century. Settlements on the Tennessee and Cumberland were cut off from communication with those of Georgia, Lower Alabama, and Mississippi by long stretches of territory inhabited or roamed over by the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. The French communities of Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and Detroit were similarly separated from the people of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and newly settled Ohio by the territory of the hostile Shawnees, Miamis, Wyandots, Pottawatomies, Ottawas, Kickapoos, _et al._ A cure for all this inconvenience and expense had been sought and given much consideration by the Government authorities. President Jefferson (as has been previously stated) had, as early as 1803,[225] suggested the propriety of an exchange of lands by those tribes east of the Mississippi for an equal or greater area of territory within the newly acquired Louisiana purchase, and in 1809 had authorized a delegation of Cherokees to proceed to that country with a view to selecting a suitable tract to which they might remove, and to which many of them did remove in the course of the years immediately succeeding.[226] The matter of a general exchange of lands, however, became the subject of Congressional consideration, and the Committee on Public Lands of the United States Senate reported[227] a resolution for an appropriation to enable the President to negotiate treaties with the Indian tribes which should have for their object an exchange of territory owned by any tribe residing east of the Mississippi for other land west of that river. The committee expressed the opinion that the proposition contained in the foregoing resolution would be better calculated to remedy the inconvenience and remove the evils arising out of the existing condition of the frontier settlements than any other within the power of the Government. It was admitted, however, that this object could not be attained except by the voluntary consent of the several tribes interested, made manifest through duly negotiated treaties with them. The Senate was favorable to this proposition, but the House of Representatives interposed a negative upon the action taken by the former body.[228]