Sula

The Sula are the indigenous people of the Sula Islands, a western Moluccan archipelago between Sulawesi and Halmahera. Their main islands are Taliabu, Mangole and Sulabesi, whose port of Sanana is their political center. They speak Sula, a Central Maluku Malayo-Polynesian language related to Buru.

Sula society is organized into patrilineal clans, gathered on Sulabesi into the four-soa confederacy of Soa Gareha and on Mangole into the nine-clan Umasoa Gatasia. In 1511 the Sultanate of Ternate brought the islands under its sovereignty, installing a governor titled Salahakan and receiving tribute of resin, rattan, beeswax and sea produce; under Ternate's influence the Sula became Muslims. In the seventeenth century the Dutch built Fort De Verwachting at Sanana to secure trade routes.