1497–1499
Vasco da Gama's fleet rounds southern Africa en route to India
Vasco da Gama’s fleet completed the first recorded European voyage from Europe to India via the Cape, calling at St Helena Bay and São Brás (Mossel Bay), naming the Natal coast, and continuing into the western Indian Ocean.
On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama sailed from the Tagus with four vessels—typically named São Gabriel, São Rafael, Berrio and a storeship—to reach India by the Atlantic–Cape route opened by Bartolomeu Dias. After a long open-ocean passage from the Cape Verdes, the fleet sighted the southern African west coast on 4 November and, on 7–8 November, entered a bay they named Santa Helena (St Helena Bay).
There the Portuguese cleaned and watered the ships for eight days. The Roteiro describes inhabitants living on seals, whales, gazelles and roots, dressed in skins. After gift exchanges, Fernão Veloso went inland with local people; when boats went to recover him, assegais were thrown and Da Gama and several others were wounded. The fleet left on 16 November, doubled the Cape of Good Hope on 22 November, and on 25 November entered the bay of São Brás (Mossel Bay), where the storeship was broken up.
At São Brás, people resembling those at St Helena Bay—but bringing oxen, cows and sheep—bartered and danced with the Portuguese; an ox was bought for bracelets. The mood changed when locals, pointing to the watering place, objected to the taking of water and drove cattle into the bush. Da Gama’s men landed under arms and fired bombards to disperse them. The journal also records that Dias had earlier killed a man at the same watering place during a stone-throwing confrontation. Before sailing, the Portuguese raised a cross and pillar that local people demolished as the ships departed.
By Christmas Day 1497 the fleet had passed Dias’s furthest pillar and named some seventy leagues of newly seen coast Natal. From there Da Gama continued into the western Indian Ocean, reached Calicut in 1498, and returned to Portugal in 1499. For southern Africa, the voyage left the first extended Portuguese narrative of shore contact—mixing barter, coercion and violence—along coasts already occupied by pastoral and foraging communities.
Significance
Confirmed the Cape sea route as a commercial and imperial corridor linking Europe, Africa and Asia.
Why it matters
Confirmed the Cape sea route as a commercial and imperial corridor linking Europe, Africa and Asia.
Disputed interpretations
Authorship of the Roteiro is uncertain (Álvaro Velho and João de Sá are the usual candidates). Local identities at St Helena Bay are hard to fix from the text alone: the journal emphasises seals, whales, gazelles and roots as food, whereas São Brás people brought cattle and sheep—consistent with Khoekhoe pastoralists—and later writers often folded both encounters under one label.
Perspective notes
The Roteiro records barter, music and gift exchange at São Brás alongside Portuguese seizure of a captive at St Helena Bay, an armed clash that wounded Da Gama, and the firing of bombards during a watering dispute. Information about local motives comes mainly through the Portuguese account and is most explicit where water and cattle are concerned.
Terminology notes
The journal calls coastal people “negros”; later Portuguese and Dutch sources commonly used “Hottentots” for Cape pastoralists. This entry uses Khoekhoe for the cattle-keeping communities evidenced at São Brás, while noting that the St Helena Bay group is less clearly identified.