Cabo Santa Maria | |
|---|---|
  Cabo Santa Maria Map of Angola | |
| Coordinates: 13°25′07″S12°32′00″E / 13.418611°S 12.533333°E | |
| Location | Angola |
| Offshore water bodies | Atlantic Ocean |
Cabo de Santa Maria is a cape in Angola some 200 km southwest of Lobito and 130 km southwest of Benguela.
In 1482, the Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão reached Cabo de Santa Maria on his first journey to explore the African West coast south of the Equator. The cape was first called Cabo do Lobo (Wolf's Cape). [1]
To mark the place as being under Portuguese sovereignty, Diogo Cão erected a stone cross, a Padrão. [2] It carried the following text:
Na era da criação do mundo de 6681 anos, e do nascimento de Nosso Senhor Jesus de 1482 anos, o mui alio, mui excelente e poderoso principe, el-rel D. João II, de Portugal, mandou descobrir esta terra e põr estes padrões por Diogo Cão, escudeiro de sua caso. [3] | In the year 6681 after creation and in the year 1482 after the birth of Our Lord Jesus the august, most excellent and mighty king John II of Portugal ordered the discovery of this land and the erection of this stone cross by Diogo Cão, squire of his court. |
Diogo Cão, also known as Diogo Cam, was a Portuguese mariner and one of the most notable explorers of the fifteenth century. He made two voyages along the west coast of Africa in the 1480s, exploring the Congo River and the coasts of present-day Angola and Namibia.
The history of the Kingdom of Portugal from the Illustrious Generation of the early 15th century to the fall of the House of Aviz in the late 16th century has been named the "Portuguese golden age" and the "Portuguese Renaissance". During this period, Portugal was the first European power to begin building a colonial empire as Portuguese sailors and explorers discovered an eastern route to India as well as several Atlantic archipelagos and colonized the African coast and Brazil. They also explored the Indian Ocean and established trading routes throughout most of southern Asia, sending the first direct European maritime trade and diplomatic missions to Ming China and to Japan, at the same time installing trading posts and the most important colony: Portuguese Macau. The Portuguese Renaissance produced a plethora of poets, historians, critics, theologians, and moralists. The Cancioneiro Geral by Garcia de Resende is taken to mark the transition from Old Portuguese to the modern Portuguese language.
Bartolomeu Dias was a Portuguese mariner and explorer. In 1488, he became the first European navigator to round the southern tip of Africa and to demonstrate that the most effective southward route for ships lies in the open ocean, well to the west of the African coast. His discoveries effectively established the sea route between Europe and Asia.
Sal is an island in Cape Verde. Sal is a tourist destination with white sandy beaches and over 350 days of sunshine a year. It is one of the three sandy eastern islands of the Cape Verde archipelago in the central Atlantic Ocean, 350 mi (560 km) off the west coast of Africa. Cabo Verde is known for year-round kiteboarding, for the large reserve of Caretta turtles which hatch from July to September, and the music of Cesaria Evora.
São Nicolau is one of the Barlavento (Windward) islands of Cape Verde. It is located between the islands of Santa Luzia and Sal. Its population is 12,424 (2015), with an area of 343 km2 (132 sq mi). The main towns are Ribeira Brava and Tarrafal de São Nicolau.
Boa Vista, also written as Boavista, is a desert-like island that belongs to the Cape Verde Islands. At 631.1 km2 (243.7 sq mi), it is the third largest island of the Cape Verde archipelago.
Santiago is the largest island of Cape Verde, its most important agricultural centre and home to half the nation's population. Part of the Sotavento Islands, it lies between the islands of Maio and Fogo. It was the first of the islands to be settled: the town of Ribeira Grande was founded in 1462. Santiago is home to the nation's capital city of Praia.
Santa Maria is a city in the southern part of the island municipality of Sal, Cape Verde. It is located on the south coast, about 16 km south of the Amílcar Cabral International Airport, and 20 km south of the island capital Espargos.
Vila do Bispo is a municipality (concelho) in the Portuguese Algarve. It has 5,717 inhabitants in an area of 179.06 km2.
Estêvão Gomes, also known by the Spanish version of his name Esteban Gómez, was a Portuguese explorer. He sailed in the service of Castile (Spain) in the fleet of Ferdinand Magellan, but deserted the expedition when they had reached the Strait of Magellan and returned to Spain in May 1521. In 1524, he explored the coast of present-day New England and Nova Scotia. As a result of Gomes' expedition, cartographer Diogo Ribeiro was the first to accurately portray North America with a continuous coastline stretching from Florida to Nova Scotia.
A padrão is a stone pillar left by Portuguese maritime explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries to record significant landfalls and thereby establish primacy and possession. They were often placed on promontories and capes or at the mouths of major rivers. Early markers were simple wooden pillars or crosses but they deteriorated quickly in the tropical climate where they were often erected. Later, padrões were carved from stone in the form of a pillar surmounted by a cross and the royal coat of arms.
Campo Baixo is a small settlement located in the southwestern part of the island of Brava, Cape Verde. In English, the name of the village means 'low field'. Campo Baixo is situated in the mountains, 1.5 km (0.93 mi) southwest of Nossa Senhora do Monte and 4 km (2.5 mi) southwest of the island capital Nova Sintra. From Nossa Senhora do Monte, Campo Baixo is accessible by Aluguer buses.
Ponta da Fragata is a headland on the east coast of the island of Sal, Cape Verde. It is situated at the southern end of the Serra Negra mountain, 6 km northeast of the town Santa Maria. To the south of the headland stretches the Costa da Fragata, a 4.7 km long sandy beach which is a protected nature reserve, important as nesting area for loggerhead sea turtles. The nature reserve covers 3.46 km2 (1.34 sq mi) of land and 23.47 km2 (9.06 sq mi) of ocean.
Praia de Atalanta is a beach on the north coast of the island of Boa Vista in Cape Verde. It is approximately 6 km northeast of the island capital of Sal Rei and 3 km west of Vigía. The wreck of the Spanish cargo ship Cabo Santa Maria, which ran aground on September 1, 1968, is located here.
Cape Cross is a headland in the South Atlantic in Skeleton Coast, western Namibia.
Portuguese maritime exploration resulted in the numerous territories and maritime routes recorded by the Portuguese as a result of their intensive maritime journeys during the 15th and 16th centuries. Portuguese sailors were at the vanguard of European exploration, chronicling and mapping the coasts of Africa and Asia, then known as the East Indies, and Canada and Brazil, in what came to be known as the Age of Discovery.
Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an archipelago and island country in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about 4,033 square kilometres (1,557 sq mi). These islands lie between 600 and 850 kilometres west of Cap-Vert, the westernmost point of continental Africa. The Cape Verde islands form part of the Macaronesia ecoregion, along with the Azores, the Canary Islands, Madeira, and the Savage Isles.
André Álvares de Almada was a Cape Verdean writer, trader and explorer of mestiço (mixed) descent. He was one of the first recorded Cape Verdean writers in Cape Verdean history, in 1598, he was knighted as a Knight of the Order of Christ.
Diogo Afonso was a Portuguese explorer.
Ponta do Sinó is the southernmost point of the island of Sal in Cape Verde. It lies 2 km southwest of Santa Maria city centre. The area north of the headland is a protected area: nature reserve Ponta do Sinó, at the edge of a large tourism development zone. There is a lighthouse on the headland, Farol da Ponta do Sinó, built in 1892.