Rounding the Cape
In February 1488, Bartolomeu Dias and his crew rounded the southern tip of Africa without realizing they had done so.
Dias had left Portugal the previous August with two caravels and a supply vessel, charged by King João II with finding a sea route to the trading markets of the Indian Ocean. Portuguese navigators had been working their way south along Africa’s western coast for decades, gradually extending the limits of the known coastline. Whether Africa could be rounded remained an open question.
Dias followed the coast south until fierce weather drove his ships into the Atlantic. When they eventually turned north in search of land, they encountered a coastline running east and west. Without seeing the Cape itself, they had sailed around the southern end of Africa.
The passage to the Indian Ocean was no longer merely a possibility. They had found it.
Far Enough?
The expedition continued eastward along the southern African coast, but after months at sea, supplies were running low and India remained an unknown distance away. The crew pressed to return. Dias wanted to continue, and a compromise was reached: they would sail a little farther before turning back.
On the return journey, they finally sighted the cape they had rounded without knowing it. Later accounts credit Dias with naming it the Cape of Storms, reflecting the conditions they had encountered. It became known instead as the Cape of Good Hope, a name that better reflected Portugal’s ambitions.
They returned to Lisbon in December 1488, sixteen months after setting sail. They had not reached India, but they had established that a passage around Africa existed.
Another Man Reaches India
Following his return to Portugal, Dias continued in royal service. He held an administrative appointment connected with Portuguese trade in West Africa and assisted with preparations for the expedition that Vasco da Gama would lead in 1497.
One of the experienced pilots from Dias’s earlier voyage, Pêro de Alenquer, also sailed with da Gama. The knowledge acquired during the first passage was being carried into the next.
Dias accompanied da Gama’s fleet for part of its outward journey before proceeding to his own assignment on the West African coast.
In May 1498, da Gama reached Calicut, on India’s southwestern coast. Ten years after Dias and his crew had rounded the Cape, Portuguese ships had finally reached India by sea. The route that had been explored in stages over generations was now a passage connecting two great trading regions.
The Final Voyage
In March 1500, Dias sailed once more, joining a fleet of thirteen ships commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral and bound for India. Following the Portuguese practice of sailing far into the Atlantic to take advantage of favourable winds, they ventured so far west that they encountered the coast of Brazil.
After making landfall in April, the fleet continued southeast towards the Cape of Good Hope. But in May, a violent storm claimed four ships, including the one commanded by Dias. He and his crew were lost.
Four vessels were lost, including the one commanded by Dias. He and his crew did not survive. The navigator who had helped establish the passage to the Indian Ocean had died attempting another voyage along the route that his work had made possible.
We know surprisingly little about Dias himself. The surviving evidence tells us about his appointments, voyages and achievements, but not much about his private character or ambitions. His reputation rests largely upon what he accomplished at sea.
Perhaps that is fitting. Vasco da Gama completed the journey to India, but Dias had helped make it possible. His expedition established something that later sailors could rely upon, extending the knowledge available to those who followed.
