BOMA (properly Mboma)  , a port on the north bank of the river Congo about 6o m. from its mouth, the administrative capital of Belgian Congo . Pop. about 5000 . It was one of the places at which the European traders on the west coast of Africa established stations in the 16th and 17th centuries . It became the entrep6t for the commerce of the lower Congo and a well-known mart for slaves . The trade was chiefly in the hands of Dutch merchants, but British, French and Portuguese firms also had factories there . No European power exercised sovereignty, though shadowy claims were from time to time put forward by Portugal (see AFRICA, § 5) . In 1884 the natives of Boma granted a protectorate of their country to the Inter-national Association of the Congo . See H . M . Stanley, The Congo and the Founding of its Free State (London, 1885) .