''São Bento'' (Saint Benedict), commanded by captain Fernão de Álvares Cabral, the son of

Pedro Álvares Cabral Pedro Álvares Cabral (; born Pedro Álvares de Gouveia; ) was a Portuguese nobleman, military commander, navigator and explorer regarded as the European discoverer of Brazil. He was the first human in history to ever be on four continents, ...

, was a Portuguese

carrack A carrack (; ; ) is a three- or four- masted ocean-going sailing ship that was developed in the 14th to 15th centuries in Europe, most notably in Portugal and Spain. Evolving from the single-masted cog, the carrack was first used for Europea ...

of 900 tons wrecked in April 1554 near the mouth of the Msikaba River, midway between Port Edward and Port St. Johns on the

Transkei Transkei ( , meaning ''the area beyond Great Kei River,

he river The He River is a tributary of the Xi River in Guangxi and Guangdong provinces in China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it ...

Kei''), officially the Republic of Transkei (), was an list of historical unrecognized states and dependencies, unrecognised state in the southeastern region of South Africa f ...

coast of South Africa. The ship had left

Cochin Kochi ( , ), formerly known as Cochin ( ), is a major port city along the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea. It is part of the district of Ernakulam in the state of Kerala. The city is also commonly referred to as Ernaku ...

on 1 February 1554 and was en route to

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

with a cargo of spices, coconuts, silks, porcelain, cornelian beads, cotton cloth and other luxury goods. There are no hull remains at the site.

Background

On the night of 24 April 1554, ''São Bento'' was sailing in stormy weather off the Transkei coast. The ship was in a poor state of repair and overloaded, and when she ran aground, she quickly sank at the mouth of a gully on the seaward side of the island at the river mouth, with the loss of 44 Portuguese and over one hundred slaves. Two years earlier on 10 June 1552 ''São João'' had been wrecked along the same stretch of coast at Port Edward, almost certainly accounting for the name of the nearby settlement of Port St. Johns. The survivors, one of whom was Manuel de Mesquita Perestrelo and who later wrote an account of the disaster, made camp on the south bank of the river and put up a shelter which was "a superb lodging made of rich carpets, pieces of good cloth and silk, put to very different use from that for which they were made." On 28 April 1554, after crossing the Msikaba River on rafts made from barrels lashed together, a party of 224 slaves and 98 Portuguese headed north along the coast to the Portuguese trading post established at

Inhambane Inhambane (also known as Terra de Boa Gente (''Land of Good People'')) is a city located in southern Mozambique, lying on Inhambane Bay, 470 km northeast of Maputo. It is the capital of the Inhambane Province and, according to the 2017 cen ...

in 1534, and a distance of some as the crow flies from the site of the wreck. Some able-bodied men were armed with lances and swords, but there was only one musket between the lot. "Having crossed the river, we put ourselves in marching order, carrying a crucifix bound upon a lance… We arranged ourselves in single file, and set our faces towards the interior by a path made by elephants, directing ourselves towards a height where it seemed to us we might discover some settlement." Only twenty Portuguese survivors and three slaves managed to reach safety in Mozambique.

Background

References

Further reading