Portugal–South Africa relations as part of a land claim). Bartolomeu Dias did so in 1486, and Vasco da Gama recorded a sighting of the Cape of Good Hope in 1497, en route to India. South Africa had close relations with Portugal, particularly during the time that Mozambique and Angola were Portuguese colonies. South Africa under apartheid was ruled by the National Party, which shared common ground with the anti-communist "Estado Novo" regime of António Salazar in Portugal. Following Britain's decision to grant independence to its colonies in Africa, the government of Hendrik Verwoerd feared that the newly-independent states would fall under the influence
First Dutch Expedition to Nusantara their spice in Lisbon, Portugal, as they could still make a decent profit by reselling it throughout Europe. However, in the 1590s Spain, which was at war with the Netherlands, was in a dynastic union with Portugal, thus making continued trade practically impossible. This was intolerable, and the Dutch would have been glad to circumvent the Portuguese monopoly and go straight to Indonesia, but the sailing directions needed in order to reach Indonesia were jealously guarded by the Portuguese. However, in 1592 the cartographer Petrus Plancius published a series of charts showing, in exact detail, the route to the Indies.