Bartolomeu Dias | Biography, Voyage, Significance ... - Britannica

The voyage

Dias’s fleet consisted of three ships: his own São Cristóvão, the São Pantaleão under his associate João Infante, and a supply ship under Dias’s brother Pêro (Diogo in some sources). The company included some of the leading pilots of the day, among them Pêro de Alenquer and João de Santiago, who earlier had sailed with Cão. A 16th-century historian, João de Barros, places Dias’s departure in August 1486 and says that he was away 16 months and 17 days, but since two other contemporaries, Duarte Pacheco Pereira and Christopher Columbus, put his return in December 1488, it is now usually supposed that he left in August 1487.

Dias passed Cão’s marker, reaching the “Land of St. Barbara” on December 4, Walvis Bay on December 8, and the Gulf of St. Stephen (Elizabeth Bay) on December 26. After January 6, 1488, he was prevented by storms from proceeding along the coast and sailed south out of sight of land for several days. When he again turned to port, no land appeared, and it was only on sailing north that he sighted land on February 3. He had thus rounded the Cape without having seen it. He called the spot Angra de São Brás (Bay of St. Blaise, whose feast day it was) or the Bay of Cowherds, from the people he found there. Dias’s black companions were unable to understand those people, who fled but later returned to attack the Portuguese. The expedition went on to Angra da Roca (present-day Algoa Bay). The crew was unwilling to continue, and Dias recorded the opinions of all his officers, who were unanimously in favour of returning. They agreed to go on for a few days, reaching Rio do Infante, named after the pilot of São Pantaleão; this is the present Great Fish (Groot-Vis) River.

Faced with strong currents, Dias turned back. He sighted the cape itself in May. Barros says that he named it Cape of Storms and that John II renamed it Cape of Good Hope. Duarte Pacheco, however, attributes the present name to Dias himself, and that is likely, since Pacheco joined Dias at the island of Príncipe. Little is known of the return journey except that Dias touched at Príncipe, the Rio do Resgate (in the present Liberia), and the fortified trading post of Mina. One of Dias’s markers, at Padrão de São Gregório, was retrieved from False Island, about 30 miles (48 km) short of the Great Fish River, in 1938. Another marker once stood at the western end of the Gulf of St. Christopher, since renamed Dias Point.