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History
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Mossel Bay bears poignant
historical significance
as the place where indigenous Khoi cattle herders encountered the Europeans in a bloody spat that symbolically set the tone for five hundred years of race relations on the subcontinent. A group of Portuguese mariners under captain
Bartholomeu Dias
set sail from Portugal in August 1487 in search of a sea route to the riches of India, and months later rounded the Cape of Good Hope. In February 1488, they became the first Europeans to make landfall along the South African coast, when they pulled in for water to the safety of an inlet they called Aguado de SA?o Bras (Watering Place of St Blaize), now Mossel Bay.
The
Khoikhoi
were organized into distinct groups, each under its own chief and each with territorial rights over pastures and water sources. The Portuguese, who were flouting local customs, saw it as "bad manners" when the Khoikhoi tried to drive them off the spring. In a mutual babble of incomprehension the Khoi began stoning the Portuguese, who retaliated with crossbow fire that left one of the herders dead. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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South Africa,
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