Demba

Demba lies in Kisama, the country between the Kwanza and Longa rivers on Angola's Atlantic side. The region's local rulers, or sobas, defended their lands against Portuguese incursions. In 1580 Kisama leaders tried to stop a Portuguese expedition passing near the Kwanza, and a fierce battle followed. Their successors continued to resist colonial expansion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, sometimes interrupting the land connection between Luanda and Benguela.