Bacan

The Bacan are the Malay-speaking people of the Bacan Islands south of Halmahera. Their Bacan Malay is an unusual Moluccan Malayic language, brought by Borneo migrants and close to Brunei Malay rather than Ternate or Ambonese Malay.

Their rulers, titled Kolano ma-dehe, headed one of Maluku's four kingdoms, alongside Ternate, Tidore and Jailolo; Dutch chronicles date it to 1322, and in 1465 Prince Bakar extended his influence to the Ceram coast. Clove trade drew Muslim merchants; the elite began accepting Islam in the late fifteenth century; first Muslim sultan Zainal Abidin reigned around 1512.

The Portuguese made Bacan an ally; Sultan Hairun was baptized Dom João, until Ternate's Sultan Babullah forced him back to Islam and had him poisoned in 1577. Early in the seventeenth century the court moved to Amasing; after 1609 the sultanate fell under the Dutch East India Company and took a minor role.