section_path: Atlantic Ocean (1419–1507)/Portuguese exploration/Portuguese exploration after Prince Henry
section_name: Portuguese exploration after Prince Henry
paragraph_text: Portuguese exploration after Prince Henry
  
  In 1460, Pedro de Sintra reached Sierra Leone. Prince Henry died in November that year after which, given the meagre revenues, exploration was granted to Lisbon merchant Fernão Gomes in 1469, who in exchange for the monopoly of trade in the Gulf of Guinea had to explore 100 miles (161 kilometres) each year for five years. With his sponsorship, explorers João de Santarém, Pedro Escobar, Lopo Gonçalves, Fernão do Pó, and Pedro de Sintra made it beyond those goals. They reached the Southern Hemisphere and islands of the Gulf of Guinea, including São Tomé and Príncipe and Elmina on the Gold Coast in 1471. There, in what came to be called the "Gold Coast" in what is today Ghana, a thriving alluvial gold trade was found among the natives, Arab and Berber traders.
  
  In 1478, during the War of the Castilian Succession, near the coast at Elmina was a large battle was fought between a Castilian armada of 35 caravels, and a Portuguese fleet for hegemony of the Guinea trade (gold, slaves, ivory, and melegueta pepper). The war ended with a Portuguese naval victory, followed by the official recognition by the Catholic Monarchs of Portuguese sovereignty over most of the disputed West African territories embodied in the Treaty of Alcáçovas, 1479. This was the first colonial war among European powers.
  
  In 1481, João II decided to build São Jorge da Mina factory. In 1482 the Congo River was explored by Diogo Cão, who in 1486 continued to Cape Cross (modern Namibia).
  
  The next crucial breakthrough was in 1488, when Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa, which he named Cabo das Tormentas, "Cape of Storms", anchoring at Mossel Bay and then sailing east as far as the mouth of the Great Fish River, proving the Indian Ocean was accessible from the Atlantic. Simultaneously Pero da Covilhã, sent out travelling secretly overland, had reached Ethiopia having collected important information about the Red Sea and Quenia coast, suggesting a sea route to the Indies would soon be forthcoming. Soon the cape was renamed by King John II of Portugal the " Cape of Good Hope ", because of the great optimism engendered by the possibility of a sea route to India, proving false the view that had existed since Ptolemy that the Indian Ocean was land-locked.
  
  Based on much later stories of the phantom island known as Bacalao and the carvings on Dighton Rock some have speculated that Portuguese explorer João Vaz Corte-Real discovered Newfoundland in 1473, but the sources are considered unreliable.