Diogo slides

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Diogo Dias (* before 1450 ?; † after 1500?) Was a Portuguese navigator and explorer .

There is little information about Diogo Dias. In addition, some historical references are not clearly clarified. So is z. It remains to be seen, for example, whether Diogo Dias, mentioned as interpreter in a letter from the royal chancellery of Alfonso V in 1465, is a question of the Portuguese navigator and explorer. Furthermore, the brother Bartolomeu Dias' is referred to in various scripts as Pedro or Pêro Dias or Diaz. Important details can be found in Teresa Lacerda, who refers in her remarks to a contribution by Sofia Diniz.

It is certain that Diogo Dias came from the lower nobility (escudeiro) and lived at the court of the Portuguese king. As captain of the supply ship, he set sail with the fleet under the command of his brother Bartolomeu Dias in August 1487 for the first documented bypass of the Cape of Good Hope by European sailors. The pilot of the supply ship was João de Santiago, who had previously accompanied Diogo Cão on his journey to the Congo River .

As a chronicler and scribe on the flagship , the Nao 'São Gabriel' , Diogo Dias was also involved in the discovery of the sea route from Portugal to India under Vasco da Gama in 1497 . As head of the newly founded Portuguese trading post in Calicut , he was imprisoned by the local ruler and sentenced to death. With a lot of effort he managed to escape and to reach the Portuguese ships, which had to make a hasty return trip because of the conflicts with the ruler of Calicut and the Arab traders.

In 1500 he took part again as captain of a ship in Pedro Álvares Cabral's expedition to India and in April 1500 he was also involved in its landing in what is now Brazil . Within the Álvares Cabral fleet, the Dias brothers had a special task. On the instructions of the Portuguese king, they were to explore the East African trading town of Sofala and, if possible, secure it for the Portuguese by establishing a trading post. Sofala was the southernmost port in Africa, which Arab and African traders regularly called with their merchant ships and in which the gold of the Munhumutapa Empire was collected for onward transport. In a heavy storm in which his brother and the entire crew of his ship died, the ship of Diogo Dias was separated from Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet on May 29, 1500 at the Cape of Good Hope. His ship then explored the coasts of Somalia and the waters of the Indian Ocean at the entrance to the Red Sea .

On a southern course, Diogo Dias was the first European to discover both Mauritius and Reunion Island in July 1500 , both to the east of Madagascar . Until their abandonment in 1575, the Portuguese used both islands as stations for fresh water and provisions for their ships on the way to Goa in India and Malacca in what is now Malaysia .

On August 10, 1500, he was the first European to sight Madagascar and named the island São Lorenço. He then returned to Portugal via Mozambique on the east coast of Africa. In the Cape Verde Islands he happened upon the remaining four ships of Pedro Álvares Cabral's former expedition to India, which were also on their way back. Jaime Cortesão reported that he reached Lisbon again with only seven survivors of his original occupation.

After his return in 1502, the Portuguese King Manuel I confirmed the annual pension already awarded to Diogo Dias by his predecessor John II, as well as his membership in the Order of Santiago.

The exact year and the place of his death are not known.

literature

  • Albuquerque, Luís (Dir.), Dicionário de História dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 2 vols., Lisboa (Círculo de Leitores) 1994.
  • Cortesão, Jaime, A expedição de Pedro Alvares Cabral eo descobrimento do Brazil, Lisboa (Livrarias Aillaud e Bertrand Paris-Lisboa) 1922, 328 pp.
  • Fonseca, Luís Adão da, Vasco da Gama, o homem, a viagem, a epoca, Lisboa (Expo 98) 1997, 369 pp.
  • Diniz, Sofia, Bartolomeu e Diogo Dias, in: Descobridores do Brasil - Exploradores do Atlântico e Construtores da Índia, João Paulo Oliveira e Costa (coord.), Lisboa (SHIP) 2000, pp. 185-207.
  • Lacerda, Teresa, Os Capitães das Armadas da Índia no reinado de D. Manuel I - uma análise social, Lisboa (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Departamento de História) 2006, Dissertação de Mestrado, 258 pp., Portuguese text

Remarks

  1. ↑ Lacerda, 2006: 212 f.
  2. ↑ Cortesão, 1922: 103
  3. ^ Fonseca, 1997: 89
  4. ↑ Lacerda, 2006: 212 f.
  5. ↑ Cortesão, 1922: 103
  6. ^ Lacerda, 2006: 120
personal data
SURNAME Dias, Diogo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Portuguese navigator and explorer
DATE OF BIRTH before 1450
DATE OF DEATH after 1500