Gorontalo

The Gorontalo, whose endonym is Hulontalo, are the dominant Austronesian people of the northern arm of Sulawesi, traditionally living around the bay of the same name. Their language belongs to the Philippine branch of Austronesian, and their early kingdoms, linked by a kinship system called pohala'a, included Gorontalo, Limboto and Suwawa.

These states came under Ternate Sultanate influence, and Islam had spread widely by the time the Portuguese reached northern Sulawesi in 1525, during King Amay's rule. The Dutch East India Company then drew them in through a treaty negotiated by the Ternate governor, creating the Gorontalo Regency.

In the eighteenth century many migrated to Ternate, Ambon and Minahasa to escape forced labour imposed by the colonial government, and by the end of the nineteenth century their homeland was fully absorbed into the Dutch East Indies.