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The rest is history with the rise of European overseas trading empires and the integrated
world economy and resultant geopolitical landscape of today (12) . In view of this the
‘discovery’ of the Cape of Good Hope has come to be surrounded with as much acrimony as
acclaim, depending on one’s politics. Still, if the modern era is characterized by - in a word -
‘globalization’ and one considers how each day the world grows closer to being a ‘global
village’, it can be said that this began - in every meaningful sense of the word - with the
discovery of the Cape of Good Hope. The raising of the padrão de São Filipe on the Cape of
Good Hope promontory on June 6, 1488, therefore – more than any other single event –
benchmarks nothing less than the end of the Middle Ages and the dawn of the Modern Era.

The Cape of Storms

The era-defining shock waves of change set in motion by the discovery of the of the Cape of
Good Hope were to have little actual physical effect on the Cape of Good Hope/Cape
Peninsula itself, for virtually another century. A ship captained by Antonio de Saldanha
called at Table Bay in 1503 and Saldanha is said to have climbed Table Mountain to
establishing his exact location in relation to the Cape of Good Hope. This stopover ended in a
fracas with the local people in which Saldanha was wounded but this did not prevent him
from reporting positively that there was an easily accessible source of fresh water to be found
here and, thus, it became known for many years as the Agoada de Saldanha, or watering
place of Saldanha. Still the prevailing view among the Portuguese was that when it came to
revitualling it was better, if possible, to avoid the shores of southern Africa and sail on to
their base at Sofala - in southern Mozambique or sail around and on to the island of Saint
Helena, if homeward bound. This became even more the case after a returning fleet carrying
the Viceroy of India, Francisco de Almeida and his entourage, dropped anchor in Table Bay
to take on water in 1510. Following a skirmish between some of his men and the Khoekhoen
herders they encountered in Table Valley that day, Almeida decided to personally lead a
punitive mission ashore only to have the tables turned on his small force. In the end Almeida
and some sixty of his compatriots were left dead on the beach (which at that time ran between
the mouths of the Salt and the Fresh River) (13) - leaving the Portuguese in no doubt that the

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