Bartolomeu Dias

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Bartolomeu Dias

Bartolomeu Dias (; Anglicized: Bartholomew Diaz) (c.

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Bartolomeu Dias (; Anglicized: Bartholomew Diaz) (c. 1451 – 29 May 1500), a Nobleman of the Royal Household

Royal Household

The royal household in all the early medieval monarchies of Western Europe formed the basis for the general government of the country. In the modern period in Europe, royal households have become increasingly separate from government, where they still exist....
, was a Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. Located in southwestern Europe, Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east....
explorer

List of explorers

This list of explorers is sorted by surname. See also the links #See also.A B C D E F G ...
who sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
in 1488, the first Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
an known to have done so.

Dias was a cavalier

Cavalier

Cavalier was the name used by Roundheads for a Royalist supporter of Charles I of England during the English Civil War . Prince Rupert of the Rhine, commander of much of Charles I's cavalry, is often considered an archetypical Cavalier....
of the royal court, superintendent of the royal warehouses and sailing-master of the man-of-war São Cristóvão (Saint Christopher
Saint Christopher

Saint Christopher is a saint veneration by Catholicism and Orthodoxy, listed as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd century Roman emperor Decius ....
). King John II of Portugal

John II of Portugal

Jo?o II , the Perfect Prince , was the thirteenth List of Portuguese monarchs. He was born in Lisbon, the son of king Afonso V of Portugal by his wife, Isabel of Coimbra, princess of Portugal....
had appointed him on 10 October 1486 as the head of an expedition that was to endeavor to sail around the southern end of Africa in the hope of finding a trade route leading to India. Another important purpose of the expedition was to try to find the country of which recent reports had arrived through João Afonso de Aveiro and with which the Portuguese wished to enter into friendly relations. Dias was searching for the lands of Prester John

Prester John

The legends of Prester John , popular in Europe from the 12th through the 17th centuries, told of a Christian patriarch and monarch said to rule over a Christian nation lost amidst the Muslims and Paganisms in the Orient....
, too, who was known as Christian priest and African Prince, though there is no evidence he ever existed. He was also sent to challenge the Muslims, who were in control of trading in Asia. Continuing east, he sailed as far as the Great Fish River

Great Fish River

The Great Fish River is a river running through the South African province of the Eastern Cape. The river is long and flows into the Indian Ocean....
. Diaz wanted to continue on to India but was forced to turn back when his crew refused to make the journey. It was only on the return voyage that he discovered the Cape of Good Hope in May 1488. Dias returned to Lisbon in December 1488 after an absence of sixteen months and seventeen days. He had explored a total of about 2,030 km of unknown African coast.

He originally named the Cape of Good Hope

Cape of Good Hope

The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headlands and bays on the Atlantic Ocean coast of South Africa. There is a very common misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa and the dividing point between the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Oceans, but in fact the southernmost point is Cape Agulhas, about 150 kilometres t...
the "Cape of Storms" (Cabo das Tormentas). It was later renamed by King John II of Portugal

John II of Portugal

Jo?o II , the Perfect Prince , was the thirteenth List of Portuguese monarchs. He was born in Lisbon, the son of king Afonso V of Portugal by his wife, Isabel of Coimbra, princess of Portugal....
as the Cape of Good Hope (Cabo da Boa Esperança) because of the opening of a route to the east. 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, by passing the overland route through of the Middle East, with its expensive middle men. The official report of the expedition to the Cape of Good Hope has been lost.

It appears that the Portuguese took a decade-long break from Indian Ocean exploration after Dias' return. In that hiatus, it is likely that they got valuable information from a secret agent, Pêro da Covilhã

Pêro da Covilhã

Pedro or P?ro da Covilh? was a Portugal diplomat and explorer.He was a native of Covilh? in Beira, Portugal. In his early life he had gone to Crown of Castile and entered the service of Alphonso, Duke of Seville....
, who had been sent overland to India and provided valuable information useful to their ocean navigators.

It seems that Dias' name for the Cape was more accurate and prophetic in his case. In 1500, Dias was a captain in Pedro Alvarez Cabral's fleet voyaging to India

India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
around the Cape. Near the end of May, the fleet encountered a huge storm off the Cape, and four ships, including Dias', were lost with all hands.

In early 2008 Namdeb discovered an early 16th century wreck off the coast of Namibia

Namibia

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in southern Africa on the Atlantic Ocean coast. It shares borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east, and South Africa to the south....
. It was originally speculated that this might be the wreck of Dias' ship, but the gold coins were identified as "Português" which were minted after 1525, thus excluding the possibility of it being Dias' ship.

Bartolomeu Dias

See also

External links