Christopher Columbus hypothesis

i am mainly looking for more information.

i have read all of the major and most of the minor biographies of columbus, but am completely unfamiliar with more scholarly work.

i have access to a university library.

Hypothesis- when columbus sailed in 1492, he knew america was there and he found it.

Eviddence- the norse found it columbus went to iceland in 1477 he heard the stories.

the basque found it he heard these stories as well.

He took absolutely the best route instead of sailing due west like i would have ( obviously i no experience in these matters)

he brought trinkets like the portugese traded with africans

he bargained with isabella over govenorships

time and time again we find the "ancients" smarter than we were taught in school.

they knew enough to realize that china was too far and could not be reached by the ships at that time.

Any information confirming or rejecting my hypothesis would be greatl;y appreciated

thanks

genghis

i

Originally posted by Maju Colombus seems to have been a slave trader in Africa before heading west. He obviously knew the currents of the area and knew that West African currents near the Canary Islands headed west into the unknown.

Slave trader? Where was he selling the slaves?

However, he did know the waters around the Canaries, and it's not just the currents it's also the prevailing wind pattern. Sailing due west from Spain would be much tougher, no matter what land you were aiming for.

 

Columbus' motives and plan are pretty clear from his letters asking for funding.  

He thought that the earth's circumferance was  around 20000 km, as such he could sail West from the Canaries for around 5000 km and  reach the Indies (Spice Islands or Phillipines).

He was, of course, entirely wrong and as the true circumferance of the earth (40000km) was well known he was ridiculed by scholars and mariners.

Fortunately for him, and his men, the  great ocean isn't empty !  After 5000 km he found the Carribean.

i realize the common story is toscanelli(??) the geographer convinced columbus that ptolemy was wrong.

I simply do not believe this story,  it makes no sense.  No one else believed it, his arguments were entirely baseless.

I am thinking Columbus created this to get funding because he knew he america was there and he could make it there.

He took absolutely the best route instead of sailing due west like i would have ( obviously i no experience in these matters)

Arguably the route he took wasn't the best one, from the perspective of one who already knows about the Americas, it does however make sense if you believe the world to be smaller than it is, and you intend to land in India (sale in a straight line along the 28th parralel untill you get there, granted, you'd hit China first, but what did old Colombo care).
If he had knowledge from the Viking/Basque/Portugese in Newfieland vibe, he would surely have taken a more northerly route to be sure of landing somewhere, if he had advanced ancient supermaps, he would know that the quickest route is south-west to Brazil.
In hindsight, he was lucky, he could have just as well missed one of the lessor antillies, and forced to turn home or face a mutiny.

Is it known if Columbus used depth measuring techniques to gauze if he was close to land (a slightly imperfect but ancient technicque)?

He landed near the Turks and Cocus islands didn't he? A bit further to the south, and he could have hit the gap between there, and the big island to the south of it. Renember, all thats needed is a few days for him to be forced to turn back by his crew.

even if he would have missed Turks & Caicos and Hispaniola, he would have discovered Cuba (or the southwestern Bahamas), only a few 100 kms further away.

I think that seagulls do reach out to 50 km and any sailor knows that gulls mean the proximity of land.

To find out how much distance could them see from the crow's nest, we need the height of it and to apply the following formula:



Where h is the height of the observer and R is the radius of Earth (6371 km). So, for 10 meters of height, the watchman would have seen 11 km. around, for 20 meters of 15 km., etc.

Visually at least they could have missed land if they were unlucky, so all depends to other factors: gulls and luck particularly.

Another important factors that can help to find land are clouds gather around some islands (specially hilly ones), the subtle change of currents, etc.

Edit: I haven't found any explicit reference to the height of the mast of the Santa Mar�a, the largest of the three Colombus ships, but I've found this replica:



And a mention that it had about 36 meters of length, what makes the watchman position of about 35-40 m, at eyesight calculation.

This means that they were able to see in good weather as far as 22 km. This restricts their chance of missing land (visually) to a half.

Also, even if they were very unlucky and missed land and they would have to return, they would have likely taken a NW course, what would have brought them to the Bahamas anyhow.


Edited by Maju

I heard that Columbus actually knew he was not in Asia. However, his contract with their Majesties back in Spain strictly thated that the assistance he received and gains he made were to occur if he found Asia. Should he acknowledge that the land he discovered was anything other than Asia, all his gains and access to lucrative profits would be stripped from him as it was not in the contract for him to receive these. Just what I read somewhere anyway......

If he knew, and there is a decent chance he may have, then it was in his interest to say otherwise.

Originally posted by Maju Originally posted by Constantine XI I heard that Columbus actually knew he was not in Asia. However, his contract with their Majesties back in Spain strictly thated that the assistance he received and gains he made were to occur if he found Asia. Should he acknowledge that the land he discovered was anything other than Asia, all his gains and access to lucrative profits would be stripped from him as it was not in the contract for him to receive these. Just what I read somewhere anyway...... If he knew, and there is a decent chance he may have, then it was in his interest to say otherwise. You may be right about that, yet, once stripped of his privileges he could have spoken out the truth and he didn't. If there's something to it, he brought his secret with him to the tomb, as he didn't wrote a line or made a comment that could mean that he thought it wasn't Asia what he had stumbled upon.

The explanation I heard for that is that he didn't want to eprive his heirs of what they were gaining out of the contract. It would have been more sensible to degenerate into the bitter man he did and leave his heirs some claim to the wealth of the New World than to just blurt out how he didn't quite reach Asia. If he knew he had not, that is. Again sorry I cannot provide a source for this, I just read a fairly convincing article that this may have been how things actually were.