Portuguese South African Portuguese South African Portuguese South Africans () are South Africans of Portuguese ancestry. The Portuguese explored the coasts of South Africa in the late 15th century, and nominally claimed them as their own with the erecting of "padrões" (large stone cross inscribed with the coat of arms of Portugal placed there 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. The early 20th century witnessed a trickle of emigrants from Madeira whose numbers greatly increased in the decades
History of Portugal (1415–1578) History of Portugal (1415–1578) The Kingdom of Portugal in the 15th century was the first European power to begin building a colonial empire. The Portuguese Renaissance was a period of exploration during which Portuguese sailors discovered several Atlantic archipelagos like the Azores, Madeira, and Cape Verde, explored and colonized the African coast, discovered an eastern route to India that rounded the Cape of Good Hope, discovered Brazil, explored the Indian Ocean and established trading routes throughout most of southern Asia, and sent the first direct European maritime trade and diplomatic missions to Ming China and to Japan. The Portuguese Renaissance