Loge

Loge lies in the western Kongo country, in the historic province of Mbamba, where river valleys and roads linked villages with the political centres of the kingdom. Woodland and cultivated clearings produced cassava, millet and palm oil, and local leaders organised the labour and tribute owed to the royal court.

Portuguese sailors reached the Kongo coast in the 1480s, when the kingdom was already an established state. Contact brought diplomacy, Christianity and Atlantic commerce, alongside the growth of the slave trade. In 1665 Portuguese forces defeated a Kongo army at Mbwila; King António I and the duke of Mbamba were among those killed. The battle was followed by a period of rivalry and civil war within the kingdom.