Bolaang

The Bolaang dynasty ruled the Mongondow people of northern Celebes. Mongondow tradition holds that in the thirteenth century local chiefs, or bogani, met in a bakid assembly and united their clans into a maritime polity called Bolaang, meaning sea. They chose Mokodoludut of Molantud as their first paramount chief, or punu; king lists place his reign from 1280 to 1376.

His successors moved the court between the Mongondow plateau and coastal settlements. After a power vacuum in the late sixteenth century, the chief Tadohe restored the state. His son Datu Loloda Mokoagow succeeded in 1670 and built Bola'ang into a power reaching Manado.

A Dutch-backed border agreement with the Minahasan federation in 1694 stripped away the eastern lands. In the eighteenth century contracts with the Dutch East India Company shrank the realm further, after which it was called Bolaang Mongondow.