Diogo Cão
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Diogo Cão (; – 1486), also known as Diogo Cam, was a Portuguese mariner and one of the most notable explorers of the fifteenth century. He made two voyages along the west coast of Africa in the 1480s, exploring the
Congo River The Congo River, formerly also known as the Zaire River, is the second-longest river in Africa, shorter only than the Nile, as well as the third-largest river in the world list of rivers by discharge, by discharge volume, following the Amazon Ri ...
and the coasts of present-day Angola and Namibia.


Early life and family

Little is known about the early life of Diogo Cão. According to tradition, he was born in
Vila Real, Portugal Vila Real () is the capital and largest city of the Vila Real District, in the Norte, Portugal, North region, Portugal. It is also the seat of the Douro (intermunicipal community), Douro Intermunicipal communities of Portugal, intermunicipal comm ...
, around 1452. His grandfather, Gonçalo Cão, had fought for Portuguese independence at the
Battle of Aljubarrota The Battle of Aljubarrota was fought between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Crown of Castile on 14 August 1385. Forces commanded by King John I of Portugal and his general Nuno Álvares Pereira, with the support of English allies, opposed the a ...
. By 1480, Cão was sailing off the coast of Africa in the service of João II. There is a record that he returned to Portugal with captured Spanish ships.


Exploration

When the
Treaty of Alcáçovas The Treaty of Alcáçovas (also known as Treaty or Peace of Alcáçovas-Toledo) was signed on 4 September 1479 between the Catholic Monarchs of Crown of Castile, Castile and Crown of Aragon, Aragon on one side and Afonso V of Portugal, Afonso V a ...
(1480) confirmed Portugal's monopoly on trade and exploration along Africa's west coast, João II moved quickly to secure and expand his hold on the region. In 1481, a fleet of ten ships was dispatched to the Gold Coast to construct a fortress known as São Jorge da Mina. The fort would serve as a commercial center for trade (including in slaves) and an important point of resupply for Portuguese voyages. João II also re-instituted a program of exploration southward along the African coast, an initiative that had been held in abeyance during the war with Spain. Diogo Cão was selected to lead João's first voyage of exploration in 1482.


First voyage

When João II restarted the work of
Henry the Navigator Princy Henry of Portugal, Duke of Viseu ( Portuguese: ''Infante Dom Henrique''; 4 March 1394 – 13 November 1460), better known as Prince Henry the Navigator (), was a Portuguese prince and a central figure in the early days of the Portuguese ...
, he sent out Cão, probably around midsummer 1482, to explore the African coast south of the equator. Diogo Cão filled his ship with stone pillars ('' padrões'') surmounted by the cross of the Order of Christ and engraved with the Portuguese royal arms, planning to erect them at significant landmarks along his voyage of discovery. On the way, the expedition stopped at Sao Jorge da Mina to resupply. In August 1482, Cão arrived at the Congo River mouth and marked it with a padrão erected on Shark Point, commemorating the Portuguese occupation. This padrão stood until 1642 when it was destroyed by the Dutch during their occupation of the Congo. Cão sailed up the great river for a short distance and commenced modest commerce with the natives of the
Bakongo The Kongo people (also , singular: or ''M'kongo; , , singular: '') are a Bantu ethnic group primarily defined as the speakers of Kikongo. Subgroups include the Beembe, Bwende, Vili, Sundi, Yombe, Dondo, Lari, and others. They have li ...
kingdom. He was told that their king lived farther upriver, so he sent four Christian native messengers to search for the ruler and then proceeded south along the coast of present-day Angola where he erected a second ''padrão'', probably marking the termination of this voyage, at Cabo de Santa Maria. When he returned to the Congo, Cão was annoyed to find that his messengers had not returned, so he abducted four local natives who were visiting his ship and returned with them to Portugal. He reached Lisbon by 8 April 1484, where John II ennobled him, promoting him from esquire to a cavalier of his household, and granted him an annuity of eighteen thousand ''reals'' and a coat of arms on which two ''padrões'' are depicted. The King also asked him to sail back to Kongo to repatriate the 4 men he left behind.


Second voyage

That Cão, on his second voyage of 1484–1486, was accompanied by
Martin Behaim Martin Behaim (6 October 1459 – 29 July 1507), also known as and by various forms of , was a German textile merchant and cartographer. He served John II of Portugal as an adviser in matters of navigation and participated in a voyage to Wes ...
(as alleged on the latter's Nuremberg globe of 1492) is very doubtful. But it is known that the explorer revisited the Congo and erected two more ''padrões'' on land beyond his previous voyage. The first was at Cabo Negro, Angola, the second at Cape Cross. The Cape Cross pillar probably marked the end of his progress southward, some 1,400 kilometers. Diogo Cão also embarked the four indigenous ambassadors, that he had promised not to keep for more than fifteen moons. Cão sailed 170 kilometers up the
Congo River The Congo River, formerly also known as the Zaire River, is the second-longest river in Africa, shorter only than the Nile, as well as the third-largest river in the world list of rivers by discharge, by discharge volume, following the Amazon Ri ...
to the Yellala Falls. On the cliffs above this site an inscription was engraved which records the passage of Cão and his men: "Here arrived the ships of the illustrious monarch, Dom João the Second of Portugal – Diogo Cão, Pedro Anes, Pedro da Costa, Alvaro Pires, Pero Escolar".


Death

Information regarding Cão's death is scanty and contradictory. A legend on the
globe A globe is a spherical Earth, spherical Model#Physical model, model of Earth, of some other astronomical object, celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but, unlike maps, they do not distort the surface ...
created by Martin Behaim reads "''hic moritur''" (here he dies), seeming to indicate that the explorer lost his life on the coast of Africa in 1486 during his second voyage. However, sixteenth-century historian
João de Barros João de Barros (; 1496 – 20 October 1570), nicknamed the "Portuguese Livy", is one of the first great Portuguese historians, most famous for his (''Decades of Asia''), a history of the Portuguese in India, Asia, and southeast Africa. Early y ...
never mentions Cão's death but wrote instead of his return to the Congo, and subsequent taking of a native envoy back to Portugal. A report by a board of astronomers and pilots presented at a 1525 conference in Badajo clearly stated that his death happened near Serra Parda. A coast map by Henricus Martellus Germanus published in 1489 indicated the location of a padrão erected by Diogo Cão in Ponta dos Farilhões nearby Serra Parda, with the legend "et hic moritur" ("and here he died").


Padrões

The four pillars set up by Cão on his two voyages have all been discovered still on their original site, and the inscriptions on two of them from Cape Santa Maria and Cape Cross, dated 1482 and 1485 respectively, are still to be read and have been printed. The Cape Cross padrão was long in Berlin (replaced on the spot by a granite facsimile) but was recently returned to Namibia; those from the Kongo estuary and the more southerly Cape Santa Maria and Cabo Negro are in the Museum of the Lisbon Geographical Society.


Tributes post-mortem

In 1951, botanists named a genus of plants from western central tropical Africa in his honour, '' Diogoa''. In
Vila Real Vila Real () is the capital and largest city of the Vila Real District, in the Norte, Portugal, North region, Portugal. It is also the seat of the Douro (intermunicipal community), Douro Intermunicipal communities of Portugal, intermunicipal comm ...
, the plaza Diogo Cão was named after him. In the center of the plaza, stands a bronze statue of him supported on a square granite pedestal base. In 1999, André Roubertou from the French Hydrographic Office (SHOM) named an undersea hole located off the southern coast of Portugal ( Gulf of Cádiz) the Diogo Cão Hole. In 2018, a hopper dredger called the Diogo Cao and immatriculated in Luxembourg was launched afloat.


In literature

Diogo Cão is the subject of ''Padrão'', one of the best-known poems in Fernando Pessoa's book '' Mensagem'', the only one published during the author's lifetime. He also figures strongly in the 1996 novel ''Lord of the Kongo'' by Peter Forbath.


See also

* Portugal in the period of discoveries


References


Sources

English * * * * * * * * Portuguese * Barros, João de. ''Décadas da Ásia'', Década I. bk. III., esp. ch. 3; * Ruy de Pina, ''Chronica d'el Rei D. João II.''; * Garcia de Resende, ''Chronica''; * Luciano Cordeiro, ''Diogo Cão'' in ''Boletim da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa'', 1892;


External links


Diogo Cão
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Os descobrimentos portugueses: Diogo Cão e Bartolomeu Dias
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cao, Diogo 1450s births 15th-century deaths 15th-century explorers of Africa Portuguese explorers of Africa 15th-century Portuguese explorers Portuguese maritime navigators Maritime history of Portugal People from Vila Real, Portugal