The crew spotted landfall on February 3, 1488, about 300 miles east of present-day Cape of Good Hope. João and his predecessors had obtained navigational intelligence, including a 1460 map from Venice that showed the Indian Ocean on the other side of Africa.ĭias’ decision was risky, but it worked. Dias is thought to have ordered a turn to the south of about 28 degrees, probably because he had prior knowledge of southeasterly winds that would take him around the tip of Africa and keep his ships from being dashed on the notoriously rocky shoreline. In early January 1488, as Dias’ two ships sailed off the coast of South Africa, storms blew them away from the coast. The last two Africans were left at a place the Portuguese sailors called Angra do Salto, probably in modern Angola, and the expedition’s supply ship was left there under guard of nine men. Dias dropped off the Africans at different ports along the coastline of Africa with supplies of gold and silver and messages of goodwill from the Portuguese to the indigenous people. Padrões were planted at the shoreline and served as guideposts to previous Portuguese explorations of the coast.ĭias’ expedition party included six Africans who had been brought to Portugal by earlier explorers. Dias’ cargo included the standard “padrões,” the limestone markers used to stake Portuguese claims on the continent. 1486), who had followed the coast of Africa as far as present-day Cape Cross, Namibia. Dias followed the route of 15th-century Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão (c. In August 1487, Dias’ trio of ships departed from the port of Lisbon, Portugal. King João II also wanted to find a way around the southernmost point of Africa’s coastline, so just a few months after dispatching the overland explorers, he sponsored Dias in an African expedition. 1526), to search overland for the Christian kingdom in Ethiopia. King João II sent out a pair of explorers, Afonso de Paiva (c. King João II was entranced by the legend of Prester John, a mysterious and probably apocryphal 12th-century leader of a nation of Christians somewhere in Africa whose kingdom included the Fountain of Youth.

595 B.C.) sent Phoenician sailors out from the Arabian Gulf to sail around the African continent. Dias was probably in his mid- to late-30s in 1486 when King João II appointed him to head an expedition in search of a sea route to India.ĭid you know? According to Greek historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c.

He likely had much more sailing experience than his one recorded stint aboard the warship São Cristóvão. Almost nothing is known about the life of Bartolomeu de Novaes Dias before 1487, except that he was at the court of João II, or King John II of Portugal (1455-1495), and was a superintendent of the royal warehouses.

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