eighteenth century, though the Portuguese had lost control of the East
African interior, they 'were exporting slaves to Brazil and North America
from the coastal fortress at Mozambique.
The Portuguese occupied no territory south of Luanda (the capital of
modern
Angola)
and Mozambique.
Their slave-trading
activities just
grazed the territories of the modern Republic of South Africa. Experience
made them fearful of the region's navigational hazards and people. Tem-
pestuous seas, strong currents, and perilous shoals wrecked several Por-
tuguese ships along the coast between Mozambique
and the Cape, and in
1510 Francesco d'Almeida, returning to Portugal at the end of his term as
viceroy in the East, was killed with several companions in a fracas with the
local inhabitants
in Table Bay, at the northern end of the Cape peninsula.
By the end of the sixteenth century, Dutch, English, French, and Scan-
dinavian merchant mariners were also beginning to use the sea route to
Asia. From time to time they landed on the Cape peninsula to take in fresh
water and barter sheep and cattle from the local Khoikhoi pastoralists in
return for iron and copper goods. In 1620, the English government ignored
a suggestion of an English ship's captain that it should annex 'the Cape. In