Diogo Cão

Diogo Cão ( † around 1486? ), Also Diego Cao or Diogo Cam, was Portuguese navigator and explorer.

Diogo Cão was in the service of the Portuguese King John II of around Africa vigorously promoted the search for a sea route to India.

Diogo Cão over, there is little reliable information. What is certain is that his family lived in the town of Vila Real, and he was accepted as a squire at the king's court. It was first as a navigator in the itinerary of French Eustache de la Fosse as captain of a Portuguese ship around 1480 in the Gulf of Guinea mentioned (" Voyage d' Eustache sur la côte de Delafosse guinée, au Portugal & en Espagne 1479-1481 "). One writes Diogo Cão two or three trips along the West and South African coast. As secured apply at least two, to which it relates also this article. It is assumed that Diogo Cão has made more trips, as the Portuguese king has appointed a captain for his discoveries, who earned his seamanship and geographical knowledge on more than two trips.

First trip 1482

On his first trip Diogo Cão handed took in the summer of 1482 in the newly established Portuguese fort Elmina ( in present-day Ghana) on water and provisions, sailed via the Cape of Santa Catherine addition to the south, reaching the first European to the Congo River. He took the mouth of the river for Portugal in possession and erected for the occasion on the southern bank of the estuary sand a stone pillar, which he dedicated to Saint George. In August 1482 he went to Congo upwards, visited the ruler of the Kongo kingdom, and sent some black Christians from his team to look for more local African rulers. He then sailed south to Cape Santa Maria (13 ° 26 ' south latitude ), where he built a second, dedicated to St Augustine stone pillar. Then he returned to the Congo estuary back, took four Africans on board and returned to Portugal, which he reached in April 1484. Here he was received by Johann II and given privileges and honors.

Diogo Cão was assumed that the Congo is navigable and opens the way to India. The same opinion was the Portuguese king, the Pope Innocent VIII in December 1485 left hand over a prayer of thanks in which he boasted that his ships stood before the gates of India.

Second trip

But on his second voyage had begun in late 1485 Diogo Cão find that the Congo River not opened the way to India and the African coast much further draws on the Cape Santa Maria addition to the south, as he suspected so far. At the mouth of the Congo expected him his 1482 emitted crew members. He also dismissed three of the four Africans, which he had taken on his first trip to Portugal, back to their homeland. The fourth was baptized in Portugal and only came back in 1490 with the expedition of Gonçalo de Sousa.

Also on this trip, he had two stone steles erected so -called Padrões, one at 15 ° 41 ' south latitude at Cape Monte Negro and the second at 21 ° 46' south latitude on today's Cape Cross in Namibia, leaving in January 1486 reached. This north of Walvis Bay closest point is considered to be farthest advance to the south. Probably Diogo Cão sailed on the way back in 1486 the Congo to the waterfalls of Ielala, since there the carved into a stone by Diogo Cão name, Pedro da Costa and Pedro Annes been found.

On his death, the science is not in agreement. Some researchers believe that he died at Cape Cross. They interpret a corresponding entry on the map of Henricus Martellus Germanus geographers from 1489/90 to that effect. Other scientists argue that he was in 1487 returned to Portugal. With the difficult chronological order of the events of his travels also a potential third expedition is founded.

The global importance of his discovery trips not only illustrate the entries in the map of Metellus, but also a map of the Italian Cristoforo Soligo (around 1486 ) as well as on the globe of Martin Behaim of 1492.

See also: History of Portugal, Chronology Portugal