Diogo Cao Reaches the Congo River

1482

The Portuguese captain erected a limestone padrao pillar at the mouth of the Congo, the largest river any European had yet encountered anywhere in Africa. The astonishing volume of brown water pouring into the Atlantic for miles offshore hinted at a continent of unimagined geographic scale lying behind the coastal fringe. Cao's contact with the powerful Kongo kingdom initiated one of the most complex and consequential cross-cultural encounters of the entire age.