Vasco da Gama and the sea route to the East

• The compass shows direction; the astrolabe works out how far north or south you are.
• Da Gama’s charts made the route easier for later sailors. An explorer travels to learn about new places.
• November 1497: at St Helena Bay he met Khoikhoi; at first they traded, then a fight broke out.
• At Mossel Bay his men traded with the Khoikhoi for cattle.
• Christmas 1497: he named the east coast Natal (Portuguese for Christmas).
• He stopped at Mozambique, Mombasa and Malindi; at Malindi a local pilot guided him across the Indian Ocean to Calicut.

The voyages “made the world smaller”: far places were linked by trade. But there was also violence and the loss of land.

• Portugal took control of much of the spice trade and built forts and trading posts along the coasts of Africa and India.
• The Portuguese took over Swahili ports such as Kilwa and Mombasa by force, and the old Indian Ocean trade was disrupted.
• Later the Dutch, English and French also sailed this route. The Cape became a stopping place, and in time the Khoikhoi lost land and cattle.

The VOC (Dutch East India Company) was founded in the Netherlands in 1602. It was a big trading company that sent ships to Batavia (now Jakarta in Indonesia) to buy spices. A voyage took about eight months. Because the Cape lies halfway, the VOC started a refreshment station here in 1652 under Jan van Riebeeck: fresh water, vegetables and meat for the ships.

• Men and young boys slept in small, stuffy spaces, along with rats and lice.
• Food: hard ship’s biscuit, salted meat and dried peas; the drinking water in the barrels went bad.
• Without fresh fruit many got scurvy, and many sailors died at sea.
• Sailors worked in four-hour shifts (watches); the ship’s bell rang every half hour.
• The rules were strict and the punishments harsh.