1503
António de Saldanha enters Table Bay
A three-ship Portuguese squadron led by António de Saldanha reached Table Bay after a navigational error, watered there, and climbed the mountain overlooking the bay.
A Portuguese squadron of three warships left Lisbon in May 1503 for the Estado da Índia. A navigational error brought it into present-day Table Bay, which the Portuguese called Aguada de Saldanha (“Saldanha’s watering place”). The fresh water flowing from Table Mountain made the bay useful to ships on the Cape route, although the name was later transferred to the bay now called Saldanha Bay.
Saldanha’s party went ashore to locate water and climbed the mountain overlooking the anchorage. Later histories credit the party, and often Saldanha himself, with the first recorded European ascent; the surviving evidence does not establish every detail of who made the climb. The Portuguese also attempted to barter for livestock with local Khoekhoe pastoralists. A later account describes an exchange involving small manufactured goods, sheep and cattle, followed by a confrontation when the animals were taken away and Khoekhoe defenders recovered them, wounding Saldanha.
Khoekhoe communities moved through the Table Bay, Swartland and Saldanha Bay region with herds and controlled access to water, grazing and livestock. The episode forms part of a pattern in which maritime provisioning combined exchange with coercion; that pattern sharpened during the Salt River clash in 1510.
Significance
The landfall made Table Bay a named watering place in Portuguese navigation and left an early written record of contact with Khoekhoe pastoralists. Its later naming history also explains why the name Saldanha belongs to a different bay today.
Why it matters
The landfall established Table Bay as a known watering place on the Cape route and recorded an early encounter between Portuguese mariners and Khoekhoe pastoralists.
Perspective notes
The surviving accounts emphasise the mariners' need for water and livestock and provide limited information about Khoekhoe responses, apart from the defence of animals and access to local resources.
Terminology notes
Portuguese and later colonial sources used labels such as “Hottentots” for Cape pastoralists. This entry uses Khoekhoe, the modern ethnonym preferred for the pastoral communities evidenced around Table Bay.