Bartolomeu Dias proves there are no sea monsters near Africa

Can you imagine what it was like during the Age of Exploration?  Sailing was a risky business, but traveling at all was a risky business.  Bartolomue Dias knew both of these things firsthand and experienced them.  But he wasn’t afraid, and made history as the first European to sail around Africa.

Why look for a water route to India?

Overland travel is significantly more expensive, and since the Byzantine Empire fell a few years ago it’s significantly more dangerous to travel through.  Also, as I said in From Plato to Sir Francis Drake, they were all convinced there was a Christian king somewhere in Africa they needed to help.

(This lesson was inspired by The Mystery of History 3*, and the author was right, this lesson is so much easier if you have a hand map, which leads me to…)

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Supplies for our Bartolomeu Dias lesson

giant maps (learn how to make wall maps), row boat like from this Lego Junior Pirate set*, a few guys or so (like the Lego education fantasy and historical figures set*)

Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope

Bartolomeu Dias, who no matter how often I look at his first name, it looks like I spelled it wrong. It doesn’t help that spell check also thinks it’s spelled wrong.  Sigh, poor Ticia, of course, spell check also thinks my name is spelled wrong, so obviously there are some problems here.

First off Bartolomue Dias set off with his intrepid crew and reached the Canary Islands.  This is the point where every other European sailor said, “This is way too scary, we should turn around.”  But Dias said, “No you crazy people, we’re going to keep going.”

They sailed down the West coast of Africa, which is nothing like the West coast of the United States convinced sea monsters were going to eat them or the ocean was going to open up and swallow them.

It didn’t.

Instead, they reached the tip of Africa and had two weeks of storms.  The storms were so bad Dias’ ships were swept far out to sea.  When the storms calmed down, the crew discovered they had rounded the bottom of Africa.

Success!

Dias was all set to sail on and discover the sea route to India.  His crew, on the other hand, wanted to go home before any sea monsters found them, or you know other bad stuff.  So they all sat down refusing to move an inch further.

Dias gave up and turned his ship around.  This time they sailed closer to the coast of Africa, and Dias decided to name the bit he had just passed through “Cabo Tormentoso” or “Cape of Storms.”

They arrived home and told the king and Prince Henry the Navigator all about their brave journey.  They were both suitably impressed but thought for PR reasons naming it Cape of Storms was a bad idea.  So they renamed it Cape of Good Hope.

Unfortunately for Dias, he is not the European who finally makes the entire journey to India.  That belongs to Vasco de Gama, who you will learn all about next….