Talaud

The Talaud, also called Taloda, the sea people, are the Austronesian inhabitants of the Talaud archipelago between Sulawesi and Mindanao. Stone tools from 6000 BC and Chinese trade ceramics found in island caves attest to early settlement and maritime commerce, and their ancestors are said to have come from Mindanao and Ternate.

They speak Talaud, an Austronesian language split into the Lami and Tirawata dialects, and use Manado Malay in wider trade. Traditionally fishermen and coastal traders ruled by small island kingdoms, the Talaud ranked their nobles as papung and governed villages through chiefs titled jogugu and kapitan laut, titles that reveal Ternate's political influence.

Spanish ships called on their way to Ternate in the late sixteenth century. After the Dutch conquered the neighboring Sangir archipelago in 1677 the Talaud were drawn into the Dutch East India Company's trading sphere.