Two rancherías (Smith River and Elk Valley) still reside in their traditional territory in northwestern California.

[5] Their homeland, Taa-laa-waa-dvn (“Tolowa ancestral-land”) lies along the Pacific Coast between the watersheds of Wilson Creek and Smith River (Tolowa-Chetco: Xaa-wun-taa-ghii~-li, Xaa-wvn’-taa-ghii~-li~, or Nii~-li~) basin and vicinity in Del Norte in northwestern California.

They lived in approximately eight permanent villages on present-day Crescent City Harbor and Lake Earl (Tolowa-Chetco: Ee-chuu-le' or Ch'uu-let - "large body of water").

[7] They called themselves in a political sense also Dee-ni’ , Dee-ne, Dvn-’ee, Dee-te which means "(is a) citizen of a yvtlh-’i~ (polity)" or "a person belonging to a place or village."

In the 19th century, epidemics of new infectious diseases, such as smallpox, broke out among the Tolowa, resulting in high mortality.

[10] In a speech before representatives of Native American peoples in June 2019, California governor Gavin Newsom apologized for the genocide.

The survivors of the massacre were forced to move to the village north of Smith's River called Howonquet.

Many Tolowa people were incarcerated at Battery Point in 1855 to withhold them from joining an uprising led by their chief.

At the Siletz Reservation in central Oregon, tribes speaking 10 distinct languages were brought together in the mid-19th century.

[12] Alfred "Bud" Lane, among the last fluent native speakers of Siletz Dee-ni on the reservation, has recorded 14,000 words of the language in this effort.

[15] Tolowa villages were organized around a headman and usually consisted of related men, in a patrilineal kinship system, where inheritance and status passed through the male line.