thumb|Statue of Bartolomeu Dias at the High Commission of [[South Africa in
London.]]
Voyage of Bartolomeu Dias (1487–88)
(; Anglicized:
Bartholomew Diaz; c. 1451 – 29 May 1500), a nobleman of the Portuguese
royal household, was a
Portuguese explorer who sailed around the southernmost tip of
Africa in 1488, the first
European known to have done so, although some historians credit
Herodotus's account of a
Phoenician expedition that achieved the feat under the reign of the Egyptian pharaoh
Necho II (610 – 595 BC).
Purposes of the Dias expedition
Dias was a
cavalier of the royal court, superintendent of the royal warehouses, and sailing-master of the
man-of-war,
São Cristóvão (Saint Christopher). King
John II of Portugal appointed him, on 10 October 1486, to head an expedition to sail around the southern end of Africa in the hope of finding a trade route to India. Another purpose of the expedition was to try to revisit the countries reported by
João Afonso de Aveiro (probably Ethiopia and Aden) with which the Portuguese desired friendly relations. Dias was also charged with searching for the lands described by
Prester John, who was a fabled Christian priest and African prince.
Dias originally named the
Cape of Good Hope the "Cape of Storms" (
Cabo das Tormentas). It was later renamed by King
John II of Portugal to the Cape of Good Hope (
Cabo da Boa Esperança) because it represented the opening of a route to the east.
As it turned out, Dias's name for the Cape was more accurate and prophetic than was the king's. In 1500, Dias was the captain of one of the ships in
Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet, again voyaging to
India. Near the end of May, the ships encountered a huge storm off the Cape, and four ships, including Dias's, were lost
Using his experience with explorative travel, Dias later became a shipbuilder and constructed both the
São Gabriel and its sister ship, the
São Rafael that were used by
Vasco da Gama to circumnavigate the Cape and continue the route to India.
The expedition
Having rounded the
Cape of Good Hope at a considerable distance, Dias continued east as far as the mouth of the
Great Fish River, in what is now the
Eastern Cape province of
South Africa. Dias wanted to continue sailing to India, but he was forced to turn back when his crew refused to go further. It was only on the return voyage that he actually discovered the Cape of Good Hope, in May 1488. Dias returned to
Lisbon in December of that year, after an absence of sixteen months.
The discovery of the passage around Africa was significant because, for the first time, Europeans could trade directly with India and the other parts of Asia, bypassing the overland route through the Middle East, with its expensive
middlemen. The official report of the expedition has been lost.
Follow-up voyages
After these early attempts, the Portuguese took a decade-long break from Indian Ocean exploration. During that hiatus, it is likely that they received valuable information from a secret agent,
Pêro da Covilhã, who had been sent overland to India and returned with reports useful to their navigators.
A red herring
In 2008, the Namdeb Diamond Corporation, while searching prospective mining sites off the coast of
Namibia, discovered an early sixteenth-century
shipwreck. It was been speculated it might have been Dias' ship. Portuguese gold coins were found, but they proved to have been minted after 1525, excluding the possibility of it being Dias' ship.
Personal life
Dias was married and had two children:
- Simão Dias de Novais, who died unmarried and without issue
- António Dias de Novais, a Knight of the Order of Christ, married to (apparently his relative, since the surname de Novais was transmitted through her brother's offspring) Joana Fernandes, daughter of Fernão Pires and wife Guiomar Montês (and sister of Brites Fernandes and Fernão Pires, married to Inês Nogueira, daughter of Jorge Nogueira and wife, and had issue), and had issue.
Dias' grandson
Paulo Dias de Novais was a Portuguese colonizer of Africa in the 16th century. Dias' granddaughter, Guiomar de Novais married twice, as his second wife to Dom Rodrigo de Castro, son of Dom Nuno de Castro and wife Joana da Silveira, by whom she had Dona Paula de Novais and Dona Violante de Castro, both died unmarried and without issue, and to Pedro Correia da Silva, natural son of Cristóvão Correia da Silva, without issue.
See also
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