Bartolomeu Dias ( 1450 – 29 May 1500) was a Portuguese mariner and explorer. In 1488, he became the first European navigator to round the
southern tip of Africa and to demonstrate that the most effective southward route for ships lay in the open ocean, well to the west of the African coast. His discoveries effectively established the sea route between Europe and Asia.
Early life
Bartholomeu Dias was born around 1455. His family had a maritime background and one of his ancestors, Dinis Dias, explored the African coast in the 1440s and discovered the
Cape Verde Peninsula
Cap-Vert, or the Cape Verde Peninsula, is a peninsula in Senegal and the westernmost point of the continent of Africa and of the Afro-Eurasia mainland. Portuguese explorers called it Cabo Verde or "Green Cape". The Cape Verde islands, furth ...
in 1445.
Little is known of his early life, and tracing his biography is complicated by the existence of several contemporary Portuguese seafarers with the same name. He was clearly a seaman of considerable experience and may have been trading for ivory along the Guinea coast as early as 1478. In 1481, Dias accompanied an expedition, led by
Diogo de Azambuja
Diogo de Azambuja or Diego de Azambuja (1432–1518) was a Portuguese noble and explorer.
Soldier
He was born at Montemor-o-Velho, and became a knight of the Order of Aviz in the service of the Infante Dom Pedro, son of the Regent Infante ...
, to construct a fortress and trading post called
São Jorge da Mina
Elmina Castle was erected by the Portugal, Portuguese in 1482 as Castelo de São Jorge da Mina (''St. George of the Mine Castle''), also known as ''Castelo da Mina'' or simply ''Mina'' (or ''Factory (trading post), Feitoria da Mina''), in presen ...
in the
Gulf of Guinea
The Gulf of Guinea is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean from Cape Lopez in Gabon, north and west to Cape Palmas in Liberia. The intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian (zero degrees latitude and longitude) is in the ...
. Indirect evidence also points to his possible participation in
Diogo Cão
Diogo Cão (; -1486), anglicised as Diogo Cam and also known as Diego Cam, was a Portuguese explorer and one of the most notable navigators of the Age of Discovery. He made two voyages sailing along the west coast of Africa in the 1480s, explorin ...
's first expedition (1482–1484) down the African coast to the
Congo River
The Congo River ( kg, Nzâdi Kôngo, french: Fleuve Congo, pt, Rio Congo), formerly also known as the Zaire River, is the second longest river in Africa, shorter only than the Nile, as well as the second largest river in the world by discharge ...
.
Voyage around Africa
Diogo Cão had made two voyages to try to reach the southern end of Africa’s western coastline but had failed both times. Nevertheless,
King John II of Portugal remained determined to continue the effort. In October 1486, he commissioned Dias to lead an expedition in search of a trade route around the southern tip of Africa. Dias was also charged with searching for
Prester John
Prester John ( la, Presbyter Ioannes) was a legendary Christian patriarch, presbyter, and king. Stories popular in Europe in the 12th to the 17th centuries told of a Nestorian patriarch and king who was said to rule over a Christian nation lost a ...
, a legendary figure believed to be the powerful Christian ruler of a realm somewhere beyond Europe, possibly in the African interior. Dias was provided with two caravels of about 50 tons each and a square-rigged supply ship captained by his brother Diogo. He recruited some of the leading pilots of the day, including
Pêro de Alenquer and João de Santiago, who had previously sailed with Cão.
No contemporary documents detailing this historic voyage have been found. Much of the available information comes from the sixteenth-century historian
João de Barros
João de Barros () (1496 – 20 October 1570), called the ''Portuguese Livy'', is one of the first great Portuguese historians, most famous for his ''Décadas da Ásia'' ("Decades of Asia"), a history of the Portuguese in India, Asia, and southea ...
, who wrote about the voyage some sixty years later.
![Diaz on his voyage to the cape](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Diaz_on_his_voyage_to_the_cape.jpg)
The small fleet left Lisbon in or around July 1487. Like his predecessor, Cão, Dias carried a set of ''
padrão
A ''padrão'' is a stone pillar left by Portuguese maritime explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries to record significant landfalls and thereby establish primacy and possession. They were often placed on promontories and capes or at the mouths o ...
s'', carved stone pillars to be used to mark his progress at important landfalls. Also onboard were six Africans who had been kidnapped by Cão and taught Portuguese. Dias plan was to drop them off at various points along the African coast so that they could testify to the grandeur of the Portuguese kingdom and make inquiries into the possible whereabouts of Prester John.
The expedition sailed directly to the
Congo, and from there proceeded more carefully down the African coast, often naming notable geographic features after saints that were honored on the Catholic Church’s calendar. When they weighed anchor at what today is
Porto Alexandre, Angola
Porto Alexandre, occasionally known in English as ''Port Alexander'', is a bay in Angola. It is located in the Namibe Province.
Geography
Porto Alexandre is a very well-sheltered bay of the South Atlantic Ocean. The bay is facing east, with high ...
, Dias left the supply ship behind so that it could re-provision them later, on their return voyage. By December, Dias had passed the farthest point reached by Cão, and on 8 December 1487 he arrived at the Golfo da Conceicão (modern-day
Walvis Bay
Walvis Bay ( en, lit. Whale Bay; af, Walvisbaai; ger, Walfischbucht or Walfischbai) is a city in Namibia and the name of the bay on which it lies. It is the second largest city in Namibia and the largest coastal city in the country. The c ...
,
Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
). After making slow progress along the Namibian coast, the two ships turned southwest, away from land. Historians have debated whether this happened because they were driven offshore by a storm or because they were deliberately trying to find more favorable winds. Whatever its cause, the change of course brought them success: the ships traced a broad arc around the tip of Africa and, on 4 February 1488, after 30 days on the open ocean, they reached the continent’s southern cape and entered what would later become known as
Mossel Bay
Mossel Bay ( af, Mosselbaai) is a harbour town of about 99,000 people on the Southern Cape (or Garden Route) of South Africa. It is an important tourism and farming region of the Western Cape Province. Mossel Bay lies 400 kilometres east of the ...
.
The ships continued east for a time and confirmed that the coast gradually trended to the northeast. Dias realized that they had accomplished Portugal's long-sought goal: they had rounded the southern cape of Africa. Dias's expedition reached its furthest point on 12 March 1488, when it anchored at
Kwaaihoek
Kwaaihoek is a rocky headland on the coast of Algoa Bay, at Boknesstrand near Bushman's River Mouth in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is a section of the Addo Elephant National Park. It is here that the Portuguese navigator ...
, near the mouth of the
Boesmans River—where they erected the Padrão de São Gregório. By then, the crew had become restless and was urging Dias to turn around. Supplies were low and the ships were battered. Although Dias wanted to continue, the rest of the officers unanimously favored returning to Portugal, so he agreed to turn back. On their return voyage, they sailed close enough to Africa’s southwestern coast to encounter the
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa.
A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is t ...
for the first time in May 1488. Tradition has it that Dias originally named it the Cape of Storms (''Cabo das Tormentas'') and that King John II later renamed it the Cape of Good Hope (''Cabo da Boa Esperança'') because it symbolized the opening of a sea route from west to east.
At the cape, Dias erected the last of their padrãos and then headed northward. They reached their supply ship in July, after nine months of absence, and found that six of that ship’s nine crewmen had died in skirmishes with the natives. The vessel had become rotten with worms, so they unloaded the supplies they needed from it, and burnt it on the beach. Few details are known about the remainder of the voyage. The ships made stops at
Príncipe
Príncipe is the smaller, northern major island of the country of São Tomé and Príncipe lying off the west coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea. It has an area of (including offshore islets) and a population of 7,324 at the 2012 Census; , the Rio do Resgate (in present-day Liberia), and the Portuguese trading post of
São Jorge da Mina
Elmina Castle was erected by the Portugal, Portuguese in 1482 as Castelo de São Jorge da Mina (''St. George of the Mine Castle''), also known as ''Castelo da Mina'' or simply ''Mina'' (or ''Factory (trading post), Feitoria da Mina''), in presen ...
. Dias returned to Lisbon in December 1488, after an absence of 16 months.
The Dias expedition had explored a thousand more miles of the African coastline than previous expeditions had reached; it had rounded the southern tip of the continent, and it had demonstrated that the most effective southward ship route lay in the open ocean well to the west of the African coast-a route that would be followed by generations of Portuguese sailors. Despite these successes, Dias' reception at court was muted. There were no official proclamations, and, at the time, Dias received little in recognition of his accomplishments.
Later years
Dias was later ennobled for his accomplishments, and by 1494 he was serving as a squire in the court of King John II. He also served as superintendent of the royal warehouses from 1494 to 1497.
Following Dias’s return from his successful first voyage around Africa’s southern cape, Portugual took a decade-long break from Indian Ocean exploration. King John was beset by numerous problems, including the death of his only son, a war in Morocco, and his own failing health. It was not until 1497 that another voyage was commissioned and Dias was asked to provide assistance. Drawing on his experience with maritime exploration, Dias contributed to the design and construction of the ''
São Gabriel'' and its sister ship the ''São Rafael''. These were two of the ships that
Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (; ; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea.
His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link E ...
used to sail around the
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa.
A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is t ...
and continue to India. Dias participated in the first leg of da Gama’s voyage but stayed behind after reaching the
Cape Verde Islands
, national_anthem = ()
, official_languages = Portuguese
, national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole
, capital = Praia
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, demonym ...
.
Two years later he was one of the captains of the
second Indian expedition, headed by
Pedro Álvares Cabral
Pedro Álvares Cabral ( or ; born Pedro Álvares de Gouveia; c. 1467 or 1468 – c. 1520) was a Portuguese nobleman, military commander, navigator and explorer regarded as the European discoverer of Brazil. He was the first human in ...
. This flotilla was the first to reach
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, landing there on 22 April 1500, and then continuing east to India. Dias perished in May 1500 when captaining a ship near the
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa.
A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is t ...
: four ships, including Dias’s, encountered a huge storm off the cape and were lost on 29 May.
Personal life
Dias was married and had two sons, Simão Dias de Novais and António Dias de Novais. His grandson
Paulo Dias de Novais
Paulo Dias de Novais (c. 1510 – 9 May 1589), a fidalgo of the Royal Household, was a Portuguese colonizer of Africa in the 16th century and the first Captain-Governor of Portuguese Angola. He was the grandson of the explorer Bartolomeu Dias.
...
became the first governor of
Portuguese Angola
Portuguese Angola refers to Angola during the historic period when it was a territory under Portuguese rule in southwestern Africa. In the same context, it was known until 1951 as Portuguese West Africa (officially the State of West Africa).
I ...
and, in 1576, the founder of
São Paulo de Luanda.
[Livermore 2021]
Legacy
The Portuguese government erected two navigational beacons, Dias Cross and da Gama Cross, to commemorate Dias and
Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (; ; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea.
His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link E ...
, who were the first modern European explorers to
reach the Cape of Good Hope. When lined up, these crosses point to
Whittle Rock , a
large, permanently submerged shipping hazard in
False Bay
False Bay (Afrikaans ''Valsbaai'') is a body of water in the Atlantic Ocean between the mountainous Cape Peninsula and the Hottentots Holland Mountains in the extreme south-west of South Africa. The mouth of the bay faces south and is demarcat ...
.
See also
*
Dias Cross Memorial
The Dias Cross Memorial is a provincial heritage site at Kwaaihoek, Alexandria in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.
In 1945 it was described in the Government Gazette as:
The remains of the original cross erected by Bartolomeu Dias ...
*
Diogo Cão
Diogo Cão (; -1486), anglicised as Diogo Cam and also known as Diego Cam, was a Portuguese explorer and one of the most notable navigators of the Age of Discovery. He made two voyages sailing along the west coast of Africa in the 1480s, explorin ...
*
Diogo Dias
Diogo Dias, also known as Diogo Gomes, was a 15th-century Portugal, Portuguese explorer. He was the brother of Bartolomeu Dias and discovered some of the Cape Verde islands together with António Noli.
Serving with da Gama
In 1497 on the first ...
References
Bibliography
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External links
Catholic Encyclopedia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dias, Bartolomeu
1450s births
1500 deaths
15th-century explorers of Africa
Maritime history of South Africa
Portuguese explorers
Portuguese Roman Catholics
Maritime history of Portugal
15th-century Portuguese people
South African explorers