The Lone Cannon

If you walk down the beach at Sardinia Bay in the eastern Cape you will see an old cannon on the
hill. That canon is the Sacramento Cannon, called so after the ship it was salvaged from, an ancient
and tarnished bronze cannon that was part of a 1977 discovery. The cannon was called the 'miracle
cannon', since when it was retrieved it was in perfect condition, still shiny as from the forge.

In 1647, a large Portuguese galleon set sail on her maiden voyage from Macao, a Portuguese colony,
carrying a consignment of artillery to Portugal for King Joao IV, as well as silk, porcelain and spices.
The vessel was over-laden, and as it passed the tip of Africa, the storm that had blown up smashed
the ship on the coastal rocks and went down. the two-and-a-half-ton cannon was one of the pieces
that went down, and is one of about 40 canons that were retrieved from the wreak. The story is
inevitably a tragic one, since it was a wreak, after all, and the tale tells of 72 people that made it off
the ship to the shore. At the time there were no ports in South Africa, and very little chance of a
passing ship, and they made a 1300km trip to walk to the only available port, that of Maputo, then
Delagoa Bay. Six months later nine remaining survivors walked into the colony on January of 1648.
These days it is a little less fraught with danger. The Sacramento Hiking Trial begins at the cannon,
and meanders down the bluff, over the dunes, and onto the beach of Cannon Bay. Further along lies
Sardinia Bay, a favourite among local beach-goers. There is a second monument to the sinking of the
Sacramento in the lee of the first dune, just before the trail reaches the beach of Cannon Bay.
Schoenmakerskop has only one restaurant, appropriately named The Sacramento, which is located
near the Cannon Memorial.

On the commemorative stone can be found inscribed the following;

DONATED BY COMMANDER C J ALLEN 30 JUNE 1993

IN MEMORY OF PORT ELIZABETHAN DAVID ALLEN AND DEDICATED TO THOSE WHO PERISHED IN
THE PORTUGUESE GALLEON SACRAMENTO WRECKED ON 30 JUNE 1647

THE 72 SURVIVORS SET OUT TO WALK THE 1300 KM TO MOZAMBIQUE NINE PERSONS SURVIVED TO
REACH DELAGOA BAY ON 5 JANUARY 1648

THIS CANNON LENGTH 469 CM MASS 2500 KG COVERS THE SITE OF THE WRECK IT WAS CAST IN
BRONZE BY BOCARRO IN THE PORTUGUESE TERRITORY OF MACAO, CHINA IN 1640 AND IS ONE OF
10 SALVAGED BY DAVID ALLEN AND GERRY VAN NIEKERK IN 1977

The cannon was cast by the Bocarro family in Macao in their foundry. The whole point was that at
the time, the shipping industry was in crisis, and to keep the ‘India route’ Portugal would have to
build at least two ships a year. They just didn’t have the money. It was in this context that the
galleon Santíssimo Sacramento was commissioned to Rui Dias da Cunha by the Governor of Bassein,
D. Telles de Menezes. According to the Regiment of 23 February 1615 the contract required a
particular shape and size, with four masts and a high stern castle, as defined in Lisbon.
The keel was laid down at Bassein, in 1638, and the hull was ready by early 1640. The ship was
launched in April and towed south, to Goa, where the upper works and the rigging were to be
completed. War with the Netherlands delayed the completion of the ship several years, but it was
ready in 1646 and it was said that it was a large and beautiful ship, although some complained that it
was difficult to manoeuvre because of its size. Sacramento‘s artillery was chosen from the best and
most powerful guns available. Some guns were purposely cast. When it was ready it armed two
batteries on each side, making a total of 60 guns. Dutch spies, probably ill-informed by carefully
placed counter-information, believed that Sacramento carried 80 guns. Finally, in the last days of
January 1647 Sacramento was anchored alongside the old ship Nossa Senhora da Atalaia do
Pinheiro, ready to leave as soon as Sacramento was loaded. A number of bronze guns was loaded as
cargo, cast by the famous gun maker Manuel Tavares Bocarro, shipped to the kingdom.

The small fleet of two ships left Goa on February 20, 1647, already late in the season, and for that
exposing itself to the rigors of the southern winter in the passage of the Cape of Good Hope.
Sacramento‘s captain was Luís de Miranda Henriques, also captain of the fleet, while Nossa Senhora
da Atalaia do Pinheiro was commanded by Admiral António da Câmara de Noronha, who had arrived
in India as acptain of the galleon São Lourenço. The fleet carried a large cargo of Chinese ceramics
and porcelains, 60 to 80 cannons cast by Tavares Bocarro, and a vast array of silks, cottons, precious
woods, spices, drugs, gold and precious stones. A few days after leaving port the fleet spotted a ship
with pilgrims to Mecca, which Luís de Miranda Henriques resolved to board and loot, against the
advise of the other officers. The ship had a letter of safe conduct from the Portuguese authorities
and the oficers from Atalaia convinced Henriques to spare the lives of the pilgrims. Beyond the loss
of three days, this cruel incident demoralized the crews of both ships. Three and a half months, near
the equator, a third ship São Pedro o Grande, which had left Goa on March 6, caught up with the
small fleet and sailed together for 20 days. Given the late date in the season, however, the captain
of ão Pedro, Luis Botelho Fróis, decided to turn back and sail to Mozambique, to spend the winter. In
the following year, sailing to Lisbon Fróis almost shipwrecked while passing the Cape, and had to
head for Brazil, to repair his ship, after which he finally sailed back to Lisbon, shipwrecking in the
Azores, in 1651. Meanwhile, Sacramento and Atalaia were separated by a storm on June 12 and
eventually both were thrown against the coast. It is difficult to know what really happened because
the only written account that survived was written by Bento Teixeira Feio, from stories he later
heard from the small group of survivors who joined the survivors of Atalaia, during the hard walk to
Mozambique. According to these survivors, on the night of the 12th to the 13th of June, after losing
sight of Atalaia, the storm destroyed the mainsail and beat the galleon so hard that it started taking
water in. As soon as that storm subsided the crew repaired the leaks and the ship continued its
voyage south, in the direction of the Cape of Good Hope. On the night of June 15 another storm hit
the ship and it pushed south in view of land, sometimes too close for comfort. The ship held it
course but on the night from June 29 to 30 the wind pushed it ashore and threw it against the rocks
by 43 degrees of latitude south, at Algoa Bay, near today’s Port Elizabeth, near the Cape of Good
Hope.

Only 72 people survived. After resting 11 days on the beach the survivors decided to walk to
Mozambique and started a deadly march north. Almost five months later, on November 27, only
nine persons were still alive when they encountered the survivors of Nossa Senhora da Atalaia in
Zululand.
In 1778 the captain of a Dutch garrison stationed nearby visited Algoa Bay and marked the wreck site
on a map, referencing the location of huts built by the survivors. In 1949 an article referred to the
existence of a gun and two anchors in the tidal area, and three years later a researcher named
Harraway raised an iron gun from the site. In 1977 David Allen and Gerry van Niekerk located 21
bronze guns under water in front of the site of Harraway’s gun. Soon after, this number rose to 61
when David Allen found another 40 guns – 21 of iron and 19 of bronze.