page_title: Diogo Cão
section_title: First voyage
hierarchical_section_title: Diogo Cão / Explorer / First voyage
caption_attribution_description: English: Coat of Arms of en:Diogo Cão Livro do Armeiro-Mor
context_page_description: Diogo Cão, anglicised as Diogo Cam and also known as Diego Cam, was a Portuguese explorer and one of the most notable navigators of the Age of Discovery. He made two voyages sailing along the west coast of Africa in the 1480s, exploring the Congo River and the coasts of the present-day Angola and Namibia.
context_section_description: When King John II of Portugal restarted the work of Henry the Navigator, he sent out Cão (probably around midsummer 1482) to explore the African coast south of the equator. Diogo Cão filled his ship with stone pillars surmounted by the cross of the Order of Christ and engraved with the Portuguese royal arms (padrãos), with the plan to erect one in every new place he would discover.
  On his way, he stopped in the newly built Elmina Castle to stock up.
  He discovered the mouth and estuary of the Congo, probably in August 1482 and marked it with a padrão, or stone pillar erected on Shark Point, attesting to the sovereignty of Portugal. This padrão still stands to this day, albeit in ruins.
  He also ascended the great river for a short distance, and commenced modest commerce with the natives of the Bakongo kingdom. He was told that their King lived farther upriver. He sent 4 men to meet the King, kept four natives to serve as ambassadors of Kongo in Portugal, and sailed back down the river to the Atlantic. Cão then coasted down along the present Angola (Portuguese West Africa), and erected a second padrão, probably marking the termination of this voyage, at Cape Saint Mary (the Monte Negro of these first visitors).
  The first padrão erected at the mouth of the Congo River, the S. Jorge, has been taken by an English ship that sunk, according to indigenous rumors (the base is still there). The second one, the St. Agostinho, still stands today, but misses its cross on top.
  He returned to Lisbon by 8 April 1484 (on his return he discovered the Island of Annobón), where John II ennobled him, promoting him from esquire to a knight of his  household, and granted him an annuity (10000 reais) and a coat of arms where two padrões are represented. The King also asked him to sail back to Kongo to repatriate the 4 men he left behind.
caption: Diogo Cão's Coat of Arms
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