Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation — RoamSchoolFamily

Background

On September 10, 2016 the Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation signed the initial offer for Xaa-wan’k’wvt and closed the purchase on November 30, 2016, returning sixty oceanfront acres in the Smith River estuary to trust status. The 1855 Xaa-wan’k’wvt Treaty produced a 17,000-acre Smith River Reservation on May 3, 1862, and the federal government annulled that reservation in 1868 and moved its people to the Hoopa Valley Reservation. A Congressional Act of 1906 set aside $150,000 for land purchases, and a purchase of 160 acres for $800 in gold coin established the Smith River Rancheria in 1908. Termination under the California Rancheria Act of 1958 formally severed the federal relationship on November 25, 1960 and was published in the Federal Register in 1967, after which the Nation lost forty percent of its reservation. Government and reservation were restored in 1983 under a new constitution in 1987. The Tribe's offices are at 12801 Mouth of Smith River Road in Smith River, California, and its front page carries a Tolowa Dictionary and the line Honoring our Past, Serving our Tribal Family, Protecting our Culture and Independence, and Controlling our Future.

source

Visit and learn

Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation's own site

Tribal lands have their own laws. Check the nation's site before you visit.

Parks on its homelands

Old-growth coast redwoods in the Lady Bird Johnson Grove, with mist among the trunks along the loop trail.

Redwood National and State Parks

The Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation signed the initial offer for Xaa-wan'-k'wvt on September 10, 2016 and closed the purchase on November 30, 2016, returning sixty oceanfront acres in the Smith River estuary to the Nation. The Nation calls its people the Dee-ni', and a 1855 treaty at that village led to the 17,000-acre Smith River Reservation in 1862. Source

Sources

Checked September 2026.

Found an error? Tell us.