This dispute — about who had authority to cede the lands of the non-treaty bands — was never resolved legally or politically before 1877.

It was resolved militarily: the army was ordered to enforce the 1863 treaty’s provisions regardless of whether the non-treaty bands had agreed to it.

White Bird, who had been present through all of this — who had watched the 1855 treaty give way to the 1863 treaty, who had refused to sign the 1863 arrangement, who had continued to live in the Salmon River country for fourteen more years before Howard’s order arrived — did not lack historical awareness of what American promises meant.

His refusal at Bear Paw was the endpoint of a very long line of reasoning.