Toli Toli

Toli Toli lies on the western coast of northern Sulawesi, where a sheltered harbour faces the sea and hills rise inland. Local tradition derives its name from Totolu, or “three”, recalling three ancestral beings said to have descended to earth. A kingdom grew here among the coastal and upland communities of the peninsula.

By the early sixteenth century Toli Toli was among the places under the influence of Ternate, whose rulers sought slaves and provisions from the Sulawesi coast. Islam reached the kingdom through missionaries from Ternate, and local accounts place its greatest prosperity after the faith's arrival around the seventeenth century. Raids encouraged people to seek refuge in the hills, while later Bugis and Mandar powers extended their influence along the coast.