The negotiations were concluded and the treaty was signed on the 7th of January, 1806,[161] and the President transmitted the same to the Senate on the 24th of the same month; but that body did not consent to its ratification for more than a year afterwards.[162] At the time of the conclusion of this treaty, it was supposed by all the parties thereto that the eastern limit of the cession therein defined would include all of the waters of Elk River, the impression being that the headwaters of Duck River had their source farther to the east than those of the Elk.[163] The region of country in question had for many years been claimed by both the Cherokees and the Chickasaws, and the Government of the United States, not desiring to incur the animosity of either of these Indian nations, had preferred rather to extinguish by purchase the claim of each. With this end in view, a treaty had already been concluded with the Chickasaws, under date of July 23, 1805,[164] resulting in their relinquishment of all claim to the land north of Duck River lying east of the Tennessee and to a tract lying between Duck and Tennessee Rivers, on the north and south, and east of the Columbian Highway, so as to include all the waters of Elk River. It had been the intention that the eastern boundary of the cession made by both these nations should be coincident from the head of Chickasaw Island northward, but when the country came to be examined with a view to running the line, it was found that a strict adherence to the test of the Cherokee cession would leave about two hundred families of settlers on the headwaters of Elk River still within the Indian country.[165] In the mean time the Chickasaws, having learned that the United States had purchased of the Cherokees their supposed claim to the territory as far west as the Tennessee River, including a large region of country to the westward of the limits of the cession of 1805 by the former, construed that fact as a recognition of the sole and absolute title of the Cherokees thereto, and became in consequence very much excited and angered. They were only pacified by an official letter of assurance from the Secretary of War, addressed to Maj. George Colbert, their principal chief,[166] wherein he stated that in purchasing the Cherokee right to the tract in question the United States did not intend to destroy or impair the right of the Chickasaw Nation to the same; but that, being persuaded no actual boundary had ever been agreed on between the Chickasaws and Cherokees and that the Cherokees had some claim to a portion of the lands, it was thought advisable to purchase that claim, so that whenever the Chickasaws should be disposed to convey their title there should be no dispute with the Cherokees about it.