Bartolomeu Dias (Portuguese Explorer) 1451-1500

[Arturo]

He was a nobleman of the Portuguese royal household and a Portuguese explorer (Picture 1). He sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488, the first European known to have done so.

Bartolomeu Dias was a Knight 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 1487, to head an expedition to sail around the southern tip of Africa in the hope of finding a trade route to India. Dias was also charged with searching for the lands ruled by Prester John, who was a fabled Christian priest and ruler.

Dias' ship São Cristóvão (for more info about Sao Cristovao see topic “Sao Cristovao” by Auke Palmhof), caravel type ship was piloted by Pêro de Alenquer. A second caravel, the São Pantaleão, was commanded by João Infante and piloted by Álvaro Martins. Dias' brother Pêro Dias was the captain of the square-rigged support ship with João de Santiago (bak) as pilot.

The expedition sailed south along the West coast of Africa (Picture 2). Extra provisions were picked up on the way at the Portuguese fortress of São Jorge de Mina on the Gold Coast. After having sailed past Angola, Dias reached the Golfo da Conceicão (Walvis Bay) by December. Continuing south, he discovered first Angra dos Ilheus, being hit, then, by a violent storm. Thirteen days later, from the open ocean, he searched the coast again to the east, discovering and using the westerlies winds - the ocean gyre, but finding just ocean.

Having rounded the Cape of Good Hope at a considerable distance to the west and southwest, he turned towards the east, and taking advantage of the winds of Antarctica that blow strongly in the South Atlantic, he sailed northeast. After 30 days without seeing land, he entered what he named Aguada de São Brás (Bay of Saint Blaise)—later renamed Mossel Bay—on 4 February 1488. Dias's expedition reached its furthest point on 12 March 1488 when they anchored at Kwaaihoek, near the mouth of the Bushman's River, where apadrão—the Padrão de São Gregório—was erected before turning back.

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 southern Africa was significant because, for the first time, Europeans realized they 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.

Bartolomeu 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) the Cape of Good Hope (Cabo da Boa Esperança) because it represented the opening of a route to the east.

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.

(My personal knowledge is that; Portuguese understood that, Portuguese Caravel type ships are not suitable for ocean going explorations. So during this period they created more powerfull ships like Caravela Redonda, (for more info about Caravela Redonda see topic “Caravela Redonda” by Auke Palmhof) and also they understood the importance of seapower so as being such a small counry they started to build more powerfull cannons and they started to build three or four masted and higher hulled therefore more powerfull ships. Also in Western Mediterranean Turkish threat started. See topic “Galleons of Kemal Reis”. But most of the ships that Muslim countries (either in India Ocean or in Mediterranean) on hand was galley type or lateen rigged small type ships (see topic “Kadirga Galley" by shipstamps). So to get rid of this threat they needed to built more powerfull ships).

Using his experience with explorative travel, Dias helped in the construction of the São Gabriel see topic “Sao Gabriel (Vasco da Gama)” by John Sefton and its sister ship, the São Rafael that were used by Vasco da Gama to circumnavigate the Cape of Good Hope and continue the route to India. Dias only participated in the first leg of Gama's voyage, until the Cape Verde Islands. He was then one of the captains of the second Indian expedition (Picture 3), headed by Pedro Álvares Cabral. This flotilla first reached the coast of Brazil, landing there in 1500, and then continued eastwards to India. Dias perished near the Cape of Good Hope that he presciently had named Cape of Storms. Four ships encountered a huge storm off the cape and were lost, including Dias', on 29 May 1500. A shipwreck found in 2008 by the Namdeb Diamond Corporation off Namibia was at first thought to be Dias' ship; however, recovered coins come from a later time.

Dominica 1991, S.G.?, Scott: 1299.

Source: Wikipedia.

[aukepalmhof]

South West Africa issued in 1982 a set of stamps in which the voyage of Bartolomeu Dias is depict. From a leaflet on the issue is given.

By the stamp is given by the South West Africa Post:

15c) All the hazards of ocean traveling in sailing ships are symbolized by the mythical sea-monster of the southern seas. According to legend, many ships on southern expeditions were pulled to the seabed by this monsters. A 1558 Swiss engraving of the sea-serpent allegedly seen by Archbishop Olaus Magnus was used as model for the stamp design. The compass is of Portuguese design, and the colours of the stamp are typical of Portuguese maps of the period.

20c) Bartolomeu Dias departed from the mouth of the Tagus early in 1487 with a dual command from King Joao II of Portugal; to contact the mythical Prester John, and to find a route round to the spice-rich East. After leaving his supply ship in Baia dos Tigres (in the present Angola), Diaz continued south with two 100 ton caravels. Towards the end of December he took shelter from a violent storm for a couple of days in a bay he called Angra das Voltas (now Luderitzbucht). Eventually he reached the present Kwaaihoek, east of Port Elizabeth, where he was forced to turn back.

25c) A caravel lies at anchor while repair work is being done and supplies taken on board.

30c) On the return voyage Dias again went ashore at Angra des Voltas. To mark the occasion, he erected a limestone cross (padrao) on 28 July 1488. The limestone came from quarries near Lisbon.

An other set of stamps.

South West Africa issued in 1988 an other set of stamps of which the 40c stamp depict a caravel as used by Dias on his voyage of discovery.
An info bulletin supplied by the South West Africa Post gives the following information on the stamps.

King João of Portugal sent Bartolomeu Dias on a voyage of exploration in 1487. No written document describing the voyage has survived but Dias doubtless carried instructions to round Africa and complete the discovery of a sea route to India. Inscriptions on early maps and a knowledge of saints’ days make it possible to establish a partial chronology of his voyage.

16c stamp Cabo da Boa Esperançe
Dias discovered and named Cabo da Boa Esperançe (the Cape of Good Hope). He may have raised a padrão there on 6 June 1488. He certainly raised a padrã at Lüderitz on 25 July, and arrived back in Portugal in December 1488.
There is no contemporary portrait of Dias. The stamp portrays him with an astrolabe and the Cape peninsula, the Cabo da Boa Esperança, in the background. The astrolabe was used to determine the altitude of the sun and other celestial bodies in the calculation of latitude.

30c stamp Kwaaihoek Memorial.
Dias entered the present Algoa Bay and on an islet that he named Da Cruz raised a timber cross. He was forced to end exploration at the Rio do Infante (probably the Keiskamma River), but the coast ran to the north-east and there was a warm current – sure signs that he had penetrated far into the Indian Ocean. On 12 May 1488, the name day of St Gregory, he erected a limestone padrão at the present-day Kwaaihoek.
Fragments of this beacon were discovered in 1938 and the Padrão de São Gregorio was reconstructed and declared a national monument it is now in safekeeping in the Library of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
This stamp shows a replica of the reconstructed padrão. It was erected on the original site in 1941.

40c stamp Caravels 1488
Dias commanded three caravels. One a supply vessel was left in a bay, probably in south Angola. This stamp depicts two caravels under full sail. The design is bordered by the legend Bartolomeu Dias-National Festival 1488-1988-(in Afrikaans) Nasionale Fees 1488-1988, which features on the other three stamps as well.

50c stamp Martellus Map 1489.
This stamp features the Martellus map from circa 1488, the earliest map to record Dias’s discoveries. The original is in the British Library, London, to who acknowledgement is made.
Early in January 1488 Dias was a short distance south of the Orange River and because of the prevailing southerly winds, then steered seawards. In Latitude 38º or 39º he would have found favorable winds for sailing to the east. Finding no land, he steered north and sighted a cape near the Gourits River which he named Vaca.
Coasting eastwards, he named a prominent headland after São Bras (St Blaize) on 3 February and dropped anchor in what is now Mossel Bay. Here, for the first time Europeans met indigenous inhabitants of the southern tip of Africa.

Commemorative cover.
The commemorative cover depicts two caravels at anchor in Mossel Bay, where Dias landed on the festival day of St Blaize. The bay was named the Aguada da São Bras (watering place of St Blaize) because of the freshwater spring he found there. The famous Post Office Tree, a milkwood used in 1500 as the first “post office” in South Africa and today a national monument, is depicted on the left. The Mosselbaai date stamps shows an astrolabe.

Text compiled with the assistance of Prof Eric Axelson.


South West Africa 1982 15c/30c sg394/97, scott491/94. 1986 25c sg457, scott? 1988 16/50c sg487/490. Scott594/597
(Spanish) Sahara 1990 20p sg?, scott?

[aukepalmhof]

Portugal 1987 25e sg2083/84, scott?

[Anatol]

Bartolomeu Dias 1488
Portugal 1945;35,0;SG? 1987;27e;SG2084; 1992;350,0;SG? Cuba1992;40c;SG3752.

[Anatol]

Bartolomeu Dias.
PMR 2019; [P]

[aukepalmhof]

The stamp is used by Transnistria, officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR)