Galela

The Galela are a northern Halmaheran people whose home is around Lake Galela and the port of Soa Sio, with settlements reaching Loloda, Tobelo and southern Morotai. Their tongue, Galela, is a non-Austronesian North Halmahera language, closest to Loloda.

In the thirteenth century the Loloda coast supported a small kingdom, counted among the minor Moluccan realms. The Galela lands and nearby Morotai fell within Ternate's sphere from the fifteenth century; a Portuguese Jesuit mission on Morotai was expelled in 1571, and in 1627 and 1628 Sultan Hamzah of Ternate removed much of the Christian population to Malayu on Ternate. After 1663 the area followed Ternate into the Dutch East India Company's orbit.