The unceded territory provision was the crucial element that Red Cloud had won.

The treaty explicitly stated that no American could settle in or pass through the Powder River Country without the consent of the Lakota people.

The bison range that the Lakota depended on was formally protected.

The treaty also recognized that Lakota people who chose to live in the Great Sioux Reservation would receive various forms of government support.

It provided for agents, schools, and the material infrastructure of a settled reservation community.

What the treaty did not include — what Red Cloud and the other leaders who signed it may or may not have fully understood — were the mechanisms that would allow the United States to reinterpret or override its provisions when American interests changed.