Paulo Dias de Novais

Paulo Dias de Novais (c. 1510 – 9 May 1589), a fidalgo of the Royal Household, was a Portuguese colonizer of Africa in the 16th century and the first Captain-Governor of Portuguese Angola. He was the grandson of the explorer Bartolomeu Dias.

Dias arrived in what is now Angola on 11 February 1575. Attracted by the prospect of the famous silver mines of Cambambe, he founded the settlement of São Paulo de Luanda, near the island of Luanda. He became the first governor of Angola on 19 September 1575.

As governor of the new land, Dias sought to extract the land of its natural resources. This included copper, ivory, cattle hides, salt, sugar, and most importantly slaves. He helped to send around 1.3 million slaves to the Americas and Brazil through the Transatlantic slave trade.

He died in 1589 during a mining exploration.