Some Nez Perce leaders signed it, primarily those whose traditional territories fell within the reduced reservation’s new boundaries.

They had practical reasons for doing so: their homes were secure under the new arrangement, and they calculated that accommodation was better than confrontation.

The leaders of the bands whose traditional territories fell outside the new boundaries — including the Wallowa Valley, the Salmon River country, the Imnaha drainage — refused.

They had not agreed to the 1863 reservation.

They had not ceded their lands.

They did not regard the treaty as binding on them.