The Sea Route to the East
In 1487, a sailor named Bartolomeu Dias set off in a little ship from the seaward shores of Portugal. His goal was to find a sea route to the East.
Superficially, this was a voyage of discovery, a brave journey into the great unknown, a mad ‘Branson-esque’ attempt to be the first man to sail around the unknown bulk of Africa.
More specifically, however, it was an investigative expedition with high hopes of mercantile returns.
The Silk Road to the East was already well established by the Fifteenth Century.
This arduous overland route was the only way to bring valuable silks and exotic spices from the East (meaning India, South East Asia and China) into Europe and, for centuries, shuffling caravans of camels and wagons traversed this route through the dry deserts and wild wastes of Asia, carrying their cargo of valuable goods to eager consumers in the West.
High Profits Rule
Even though the Silk Road was long and dangerous, the profits were high and many traders had become rich.
Merchants were prepared to risk dehydration and banditry for the chance to fill their pockets, and many remote little towns grew into thriving trading stations which supplied the camel trains with all their supplies.
With so much money at stake, the idea of an alternative sea route to the East was very desirable to any country who wished to cut out the middleman and take the profits for itself.
Several had already tried and failed. As early as 1291, the Vivaldi brothers from Genoa sailed out of Gibraltar, turned left and disappeared forever. Others intermittently followed.
Ambitious Prince Henry
Then, in the early 1400’s, the Portuguese Prince Henry was made governor of the Algarve, a region that backs onto the Atlantic Ocean.
Sitting in his palace, the determined Henry looked out over the water and made it his business to conquer the insouciant seas. Using any and all means at his disposal, Prince Henry was determined that Portugal would be the first to find a sea route to the East.
His ambitious vision earned him the sobriquet, Prince Henry the Navigator – father of the Age of Discovery.
Under Henry’s auspices, numerous expeditions were sent out to probe the mysteries of Africa’s coast. At first, progress was slow. Ships tended to hug the shore and slowly inch their way South, like a blind man tapping along the walls of a strange room.
Unfortunately, contrary winds and the jutting peninsula of Cape Bojador made extended progress along the African coast impossible.
Trade Winds Success
It was only with the discovery of the prevailing trade winds called Volta da mer lago (diversion to the deep sea) that Portuguese ships were able to round Cape Bojador and continue slowly along the West Coast of Africa.
To catch this useful trade wind, ships had to sail far out into the Atlantic, almost to the (unknown) American shore, before a prevailing South-Easterly gust pushed their vessels back towards the West coast of Africa.
Armed with this new-found knowledge, a succession of intrepid sea-farers set off from Henry’s station at Sagres, rounded the protruding Cape Bojador and slowly crept along at the seemingly endless coast of Africa until supplies or morale ran low, and they were forced to scurry back home.
Nevertheless, Henry’s chosen navigators continued to chip away at the great unknown until their success was such that the Portuguese received a Papal sanction which gave them control over all lands that lay between Cape Bojador and the Indies – a remarkably arrogant edict considering the lack of cartographic knowledge at the time.
Bartolomeu Dias
Prince Henry the Navigator died in 1460. He had not succeeded in sending a ship to the East, but his successors were just as keen to find that elusive sea route around the wild, dark continent that squatted below Europe. By 1483, the Portuguese had reached the Congo River.
By 1486, they had erected a padrao (commemorative cross) on the Namibian coast. Then, in 1487, Bartolomeu Dias set off in his little caravel, a wooden sailing ship barely bigger than a tugboat, and headed out into the Atlantic.
He and his crew were destined to become the first European sailors to round the Southern tip of Africa.
Ironically, Dias accomplished this monumental feat quite by accident. As he neared the Namibian coast, a gale sprung up and blew his ship way off course to the South.
When the winds abated, Dias turned East and sailed on, expecting to hit the African coastline once again. After several days of sailing with no sign of land, he turned North and sailed up until he hit land somewhere on the Agulhas coastline, possibly at Gourits River Mouth.
The date was February 3, 1488 and he appropriately named his landing place, Dos Vaqueiros – the place of the cow herders. This is the underwhelming story of how Bartolomeu Dias and his crew rounded the Cape, without even realising it.
Suitably emboldened by his navigational ‘achievement’, Dias continued sailing in an Easterly direction up the coast for a bit. Then, when supplies started running low, he anchored in Mossel Bay, which he named after the traditional feast day of Sao Bras (Saint Blaise).
Their arrival did not go unnoticed by the Khoikhoi locals but, undaunted, Dias and his men went ashore to get fresh water and food, and to put up a proprietary padrao cross on the shore.
First Impressions
This first meeting of European and native was ominous. The indigenes didn’t like the look of Dias, and vice versa. Then, as a result of some unspecified offence, the natives started throwing stones at the strangely-dressed, pale-faced sailors.
Dias responded by shooting one unlucky local with his crossbow. It was a regrettable pattern that came to be repeated endlessly over the next 500 years.
Understandably, Dias didn’t hang around Mossel Bay after the little shooting incident and quickly sailed on, intent on finding the long-hidden sea route to the East. His crew, however, was reluctant to tempt fate any further.
Tensions rose, and the risk of mutiny finally forced a grumpy Dias to turn around and return to Portugal. On his way back, Dias did manage to round the Cape intentionally, and stopped at what would become Hout Bay.
Portuguese Spin Doctors
It was during this part of the voyage that Dias apparently gave the treacherous waters off Cape Town the fearsome name of Cabo de Tormentoso (Cape of Storms).
But this was far too gloomy an appellation for the authorities back home, and the Portuguese spin doctors re-named it Cabo da boa esperanca (the Cape of Good Hope) to encourage further exploration.
Hundreds of years later, students from Wits University found fragments of Dias’ padrao on the Kwaaihoek headland, near Mossel Bay. These ancient bits and pieces have now been re-assembled, and are on display in the William Cullen Africana Library on the Wits Campus in Johannesburg.
Historically speaking, Mossel Bay is the place where Bartolomeu Dias first planted his European-shod feet on African soil. He took this gian...
Historically, Mossel Bay is a very important town. It was where Bartolomeu Dias first landed on South African soil, and it has popped up in ...