Kombo was part of the Mali Empire and gained independence after its fall, and was then ruled by the Sambou Bainunka clan.

Mansa Karapha Yalli Jatta became the first King of Kombo, after seeking help from the then independent Kaabu Empire to establish the Kingdom of Kombo, he married the daughter of the Bainuk Queen Wullending Jasseh of Sanyang who sits at Gunjur and took her to Busumbala.

In 1621, as English explorer Richard Jobson was about to leave the Gambia, he recorded that he met the King of Kombo, who welcomed him to the country.

Another Portuguese explorer, Francisco de Lemos Coelho, wrote in 1688 that the King of Kombo was a Falupo, a general term meaning a Jola living near Casamance and that his village was the largest anywhere on the river.

Francis Moore wrote in 1730 that the territory of Kombo spanned approximately 30 miles from Cape St. Mary's to the Kabata River.