DIAZ
DE NOVAES, BARTHOLOMEU (fl.1481-1500), Portuguese explorer, discoverer
of the Cape of Good Hope, was probably a kinsman of Joao Diaz, one of the
first Portuguese to round Cape Bojador (1434), and of Diniz Diaz, the discoverer
of Cape Verde (1445). In 1478 a Bartholomeu Diaz, probably identical with
the discoverer, was exempted from certain customary payments on ivory brought
from the Guinea coast. In 1481 he commanded one of the vessels sent by
King John II. under Diogo d’Azambuja to the Gold Coast. In 1486 he seems
to have been a cavalier of the king’s household, and superintendent of
the royal warehouses; on the 10th of October in this year he received an
annuity of 6000 reis from King John for “ services to come ”; and some
time after this (probably about July or August 1487, rather than July 1486,
the traditional date) he left Lisbon with three ships to carry on the work
of African exploration so greatly advanced by Diogo Cao (1482-1486). Passing
Cao’s farthest point near Cape Cross (in the modern German South-west Africa
land) in 21° 50' S., he erected a pillar
on what is now known as Diaz Point, south. of Angra Pequena or Lüderitz
Bay, in 26° 38’ S.; of this fragments still exist. From this point
(according to De Barros) Diaz ran thirteen days southwards before strong
winds, which freshened to dangerous stormy weather, in a comparatively
high southern latitude, considerably south of the Cape. When the storm
subsided the Portuguese stood east; and failing, after several days’ search,
to find land, turned north, and so struck the south coast of Cape Colony
at Mossel Ray (Diaz’ Bahia dos Vaqueiros), half way between the Cape of
Good Hope and Port Elizabeth (February 3, 1488). Thence
they coasted eastward, passing Algoa Bay (Diaz’ Bahia da Roca), erecting
pillars (or perhaps wooden crosses), it is said, on one of the islands
in this bay and at or near Cape Padrone farther east; of these no traces
remain. The officers and men now began to insist on return, and Diaz could
only persuade them to go as far as.the estuary of the Great Fish River
(Diaz’ Rio do Iffante, so named from his colleague, Captain Joao Iffante).
Here, however, half way between Port Elizabeth and East London (and indeed
from Cape Padrone), the north-easterly trend of the coast became unmistakable:
the way round Africa had been laid open. On his return Diaz perhaps named
Cape Agulhas after St Brandan; while on the southernmost projection of
the modern Cape peninsula, whose remarkable highlands (Table Mountain,
&c.) doubtless impressed him as the practical termination of the continent,
he bestowed, says De Barras, the name of Cape of Storms (Cabo Tormemtoso)
in memory of the storms he had experienced in these far southern waters;
this name (in the ordinary tradition) was changed by King John to that
of Good Hope (Cabo da Boa Esperanca). Some excellent authorities,
however, make Diaz himself give the Cape its present name. Hard by this
“so many ages unknown promontory” the explorer probably erected his last
pillar. After touching at the Ilha do Principe (Prince’s Island, south-west
of the Cameroons) as well as at the Gold Coast, he appeared at Lisbon in
December 1488. He had discovered 1260 m. of hitherto unknown coast; and
his voyage, taken with the letters soon afterwards received from
Pero de Covilhao (who by way of Cairo and Aden
had reached Malabar on one side and the “ Zanzibar coast ” on the other
as far south as Sofala, in 1487 – 1488) was rightly considered to have
solved the question of an ocean route round Africa to the Indies and other
lands of South and East Asia.
No record has yet been found of any adequate reward for
Diaz: on the contrary, when the great indian expedition was being prepared
(for Vasco da Gama’s future leadership) Bartolomeu only superintended the
building and outfit of the ships; when the fleet sailed in 1497, he only
accompanied da Gama to the Cape Verde Islands, and after this was ordered
to El Mina on the Gold Coast. On Cabral’s voyage of 1500 he was indeed
permitted to take part in the discovery of Brazil (April 22), and thence
should have helped to guide the fleet to India; but he perished in a great
storm off his own Cabo Tormentoso. Like Moses, as Galvano says, he was
allowed to see the Promised Land, but not to enter in.
See Joao de Barros, Asia,
Dec. I. bk. iii. ch. 4; Duarte Pacheco Pereira, Esmeraldo de situ
orbis, esp. pp. 15, 90, 92, 94 and Raphael Bastos’s introduction
to the edition of 1892 (Pacheco met Diaz, returning from his great voyage,
at the Ilha do Principe); a marginal note, probably by Christopher Columbus
himself, on fol. 13 of a copy of Pierre d’Ailly’s Imago mundi, now
in the Colombina at Seville (the writer of this note fixes Diaz’s return
to Lisbon, December 1488, and says he was present at Diaz’s interview with
the king of Portugal, when the explorer described his voyage and showed
his route upon the chart he had kept); a similar but briefer note in a
copy of Pope Pius II.’s Historia rerum ubique gestaram, from the
same hand; the Roteiro of Vasco da Gama’s First Voyage (Journal
of the First Voyage of... Da Gama, Hakluyt Soc., ed, E. G. Ravenstein
(1898), pp. 9, 14); Ramusio, Navigationi (3rd ed.), vol. i. fol.
144; Castanheda, Historia, bk. i. ch. 1; Galvano, Descobrimentos
(Discoveries of the World), Hakluyt Soc. (1862), p. 77; E. G. Ravenstein,
" Voyages of... Cao and... Dias,” in Geog. Journ. (London, December
1900), vol. xvi. pp. 638-655), an excellent critical summary in the light
of the most recent investigations of all the material. The fragments of
Diaz’s only remaining pillar (from Diaz Point) are now partly at the Cape
Museum, partly at Lisbon: the latter are photographed in Raven-stein's
paper in Geog. Jour. (December 1900, p. 642).
(C. R. B.)
Contributor
Charles R.Beazley
Eleventh edition