The first mention of Manado comes from a world map by cartographer Nicolas Desliens, where it showed the island Manarow (today's Manado Tua). Before Europeans arrived to North Sulawesi the area was under the rule of the Sultan of Ternate, who exacted tribute and introduced the Muslim religion among some of its inhabitants. The Portuguese made the Sultan their vassal, taking possession of the Minahasa and established a factory in Wenang.
Meanwhile, the Spanish had already set themselves up in the Philippines and Minahasa was used to plant coffee that came from South America because of its rich soil. Manado was further developed by Spain to become the center of commerce for the Chinese traders who traded the coffee in China. With the help of native allies the Spanish took over the Portuguese fortress in Amurang in the 1550s, and Spanish settlers also established a fort at Manado, so that eventually Spain controlled all of the Minahasa. It was in Manado where one of the first Indo-Eurasian (Mestizo) communities in the archipelago developed during the 16th century. The first King of Manado (1630) named Muntu Untu was in fact the son of a Spanish Mestizo.
Spain renounced to her possessions in Minahasa by means of a treaty with the Portuguese in return for a payment of 350,000 ducats. Minahasan natives made an alliance treaty with the Dutch and expelled the last of the Portuguese from Manado a few years later.
The Dutch East India Company or Verenigde Oost Indische Compagnie (VOC) built a fortress in Manado named Fort Amsterdam in 1658. As with regions in eastern Indonesia, Manado has undergone Christianization by Dutch missionaries, including Riedel and John Gottlieb Schwarz. The Dutch missionaries built the first Christian church in Manado called Oude Kerk (Old church) which still stands and is now called Gereja Sentrum. The Javanese prince Diponegoro was exiled to Manado by the Dutch government in 1830 for leading a war of rebellion against the
