Dias in the Field , 1578-89.
Dias, before this happened, had already (in 1577) built the fort of S. Cruz,404 ten leagues up the Kwanza, and was at the time at a stockade on the Penedo de S. Pedro, still higher up on the river.405 When there, he was warned not to advance any further, and, suspecting treachery, he retired with his one hundred and fifty men to Kanzele (Anzele),406 where he entrenched himself (in 1578). Twenty days later he received news of the massacre. Dias at once hastened back to Luandu for reinforcements, the serjeant-major, Manuel João, meanwhile valiantly defending the stockade and raiding the neighbourhood.
In September, 1580, Dias again left Luandu with three hundred men. Slowly he proceeded along the Kwanza by land and in boats, punished the sobas Muchima, Kitangombe, and Kizua, in Kisama, and defeated the King’s army at Makunde,407 where he had his headquarters for two years, during which time his subordinates, João Serrão, Manuel João, and others, established his authority among the sobas of Kisama and Lamba (Ilamba).
In 1582 he removed to Masanganu, at the “meeting of the waters” of the Lukala and Kwanza. Determined to capture the reputed silver mines of Kambambe, he set out with Luiz Serrão, eighty Portuguese, and a “guerra preta” of thirty thousand men. During his forward march he defeated the soba Mbamba Tungu; and at an entrenched camp at Teka ndungu, on February 2nd, 1584, he inflicted a crushing defeat upon the King’s forces; the Jesuit Father Balthasar Barreiro claiming no little credit for having contributed to this victory by his prayers.408 As a result of this success, many of the sobas declared in favour of Portugal, but so inconsiderable were the forces at the command of Dias that he could do no more than maintain his position at Masanganu. An army under the Duke of Mbamba, which had been promised to him, was never sent.409 Reinforcements, however, arrived in the course of 1584 and 1586,410 and Dias fought a battle on the Lukala. But his subordinates did not always meet with a like success; and João Castanhosa Vellez, with one hundred Portuguese, was completely routed by the soba Ngola Kalungu.411
As an incident of the governorship of Paulo Dias may be mentioned the building of a fort at Benguella velho, by his nephew, Antonio Lopes Peixoto, in 1587. Unhappily, fifty men of the garrison ventured abroad, unarmed, and fell in an ambush; and of the twenty who had remained in the fort, and who offered a stout resistance, only two escaped. As a matter of fact, the losses of human life in these native wars were very considerable.
Paulo Dias died in the midst of preparations for a fresh expedition against Ngola, in October, 1589, and was buried in the church of N. S. da Victoria, which he himself had built at Masanganu.412
His soldiers elected Luiz Serrão, the captain-major, to succeed him.