Their leader, Juan Diaz de Solis, landing incautiously in 1516 on the north coast with a few attendants to parley with a body of Charrua Indians, was suddenly attacked by them and was killed, together with a number of his followers.
The king of Portugal next despatched Bartolomeu Diaz in 1486 to continue discoveries southwards; while, in the following year, he sent Pedro de Covilhao and Affonso de Payva to discover the country of Prester John.
Diaz succeeded in rounding the southern point of Africa, which he named Cabo Tormentoso - the Cape of Storms - but King Joao II., foreseeing the realization of the long-sought passage to India, gave it the stimulating and enduring name of the Cape of Good Hope.
On this island Bartholomew Diaz made his second landing in South Africa some time after the 3rd of February 1488, and from the cross which he is thought to have erected on it the island gets its name.
In 1847 another revolt followed, and the Indians were practically independent throughout the greater part of the peninsula until near the beginning of the Diaz administration.
