Yes, but that history should be informed by actual history, not completely ignore it. What you propose is completely at odds with the entire pattern of European exploration and colonization in the 1500s.
No, Europeans already understood that Asia lay to the west even before Columbus. Brazil would have provided an important way station to cut the distance to be crossed on the open ocean. Once it was discovered, it defies credibility that no one would have thought to follow its coasts farther west (or southward) as a way to reach the Far East. Which is in fact exactly what they did with regard to the southern route. I have explained why establishing a western route was important even after the circum-African route to the Far East had been established.
This completely contradicts the history of European exploration and colonization in that time period. When the Portuguese discovered the Azores, they settled them even though at that time they weren’t on the way to anywhere else. (They weren’t on the route to Africa, but became more important later as a way station to the Americas.) There really wasn’t any such thing as a “worthless island.” Even small, desolate, out of the way islands like the Azores were colonized.
And as I’ve said, Brazil wasn’t worthless even considered by itself. Although Portugal was more focused on the Far East, a trade in valuable brazil-wood (the first samples of which were sent back by Cabral) soon developed. The Portuguese monarchy offered concessions to entrepreneurs to exploit it. Other European powers including France and Spain sent expeditions to try to claim the trade, but were ousted by Portugal. This all happened completely independently of what was going on in the Caribbean and so had nothing to do with Columbus’s discoveries. There is no reason to think that this wouldn’t have occurred, and that Europeans wouldn’t have explored out from there, in the absence of Columbus.
Your idea that Brazil would have been ignored by Europeans if areas to the west had not been discovered previously doesn’t bear any scrutiny.
I disagree. The pattern of European exploration in the 1400’s (which is what were talking about) was to find a route to Asia. What you’re suggesting is that after Europeans found such a route around Africa, they would have kept looking for an alternative route that was longer and more difficult.
Yes, they did. And most Europeans understood that the distance to Asia across a western ocean route was something like eleven thousand miles - far beyond what any ship of that era could sail.
Columbus was the guy saying “No, you’re all wrong. Asia is only three thousand miles west of Europe. We can sail that far.” He was, of course, wrong in his estimate of the distance.
I’ll grant you that if Columbus hadn’t been around, somebody would have eventually tried the western route. But unlike Columbus, they would have been planning on an eleven thousand mile voyage and it would have been a while before somebody felt confident enough to try that.
They might have even hoped to find islands along the way. But they wouldn’t have planned on it. The subsequent exploration of the Pacific showed that you couldn’t set out to find islands in the ocean; you just came across them at random. Setting out in the expectation that you’d find islands along the way where you could restock supplies would essentially be seen as a suicide mission.
You have to keep in mind how conservative sailors were. Routine voyages often never got out of sight of land. A voyage where you traveled a hundred miles away from land was considered daring. Sailors had no desire to go explore the unknown.
Your disagreement is contrary to known facts. We’re talking about European discovery in the late 1400s and early 1500s, not just the 1400s. The question is how long it would have taken to explore the Americas if Columbus hadn’t existed. The answer is that all evidence points to that happening by the first half of the 1500s, and probably in the first few decades of that century.
Since Europeans did keep searching for an alternative route to Asia even after the African route had been established, for the reasons I’ve explained (that route was largely monopolized by the Portuguese), your objection can be dismissed out of hand. There’s no basis for it.
You seem to be ignoring everything I’ve posted on the matter. As soon as people realized the Americas weren’t Asia, which happened in the early 1500s, many explorers began searching for a strait or passageway through the Americas so they could continue on to Asia. Vespucci’s explorations in southern South America in 1501-1502 were already directed to that end. By 1513 Balboa had seen the Pacific, and it was realized that this was a potential route to Asia. In 1516, the Spanish explorer Juan Diaz de Solis ascended the Rio de la Plata in Argentina in an effort to find a passage westward. And as I’ve said, Magellan set out in 1519 with the explicit goal of reaching the Spice Islands and establishing a westward route there. He knew the distances involved. He succeeded in making a passage of 8,000 miles across the Pacific between the Straits of Magellan and the Marianas, encountering only two small islands en route. Knowing the distance, he was better prepared with supplies than Columbus, although they lost many men to scurvy, which was not yet understood.
And all this would have happened once Cabral had stumbled upon Brazil, even if Columbus’s voyage had never taken place. You’ve provided no evidence to the contrary,
No one is suggesting that anyone else but Columbus would have attempted a voyage straight across the Atlantic. But that’s not the question.
The question is twofold.
What is the probability that European explorers would have stumbled on the Americas by accident by the early 1500s if Columbus had never existed? And given that Europeans were already sailing very close to Newfoundland and Brazil, and that Cabral discovered Brazil independently in 1500 (and there is a possibility that other Portuguese had already been there) the answer to that is that it was a near certainty.
What is the probability that Europeans would have continued to explore the Americas once land had been discovered there even after a route to Asia around Africa had been established? And the answer to that is an absolute certainty, since that is exactly what happened.
I agree these are important questions. But I disagree with your answers.
The key point is that everyone was trying to go to Asia. Other Europeans might have stumbled on the Americas. But Columbus was unique in that when he stumbled across America, he concluded he was in Asia so he stayed and looked around. Anyone else who made landfall in America would have realized they weren’t anywhere near Asia, figured they were on an island in the middle of the ocean, and left in order to resume their trip to Asia. And because these landfalls were unintentional and thousands of miles off the route people were trying to follow, it would have taken a long time before anyone started wondering if these reports of “islands” off to the west might be evidence of actual continents.
It was a major shift in how Europeans viewed the world; they were aware that Asia and Africa existed alongside Europe and they believed this was the entire world. The possibility that other undiscovered continents might exist never occurred to them. Keep in mind Europeans of this era didn’t think like modern people; they didn’t expect new discoveries. These were people who felt all knowledge was already known and was contained in ancient authorities like the Bible or Greco-Roman texts. The idea that there were things the ancients hadn’t known about came as a profound shock.
I’m feeling it because you haven’t provided any evidence to refute any of my points. You’re simply restating your own opinions without evidence. You need to start providing some facts instead of opinions based on a misunderstanding of history.
This is amply refuted by the evidence I have already posted. It has no connection to historical reality. Europeans colonized the Azores and Brazil even though they knew they had nothing to do with Asia. They continued to explore the Americas even when they knew it had nothing to do with Asia. Brazil was large enough that it was obvious that it was not a mere island from the beginning.
This is also based on ignorance of the actual historical mindset at the time. Terra australis was postulated in antiquity and searched for by explorers in the Age of Discovery. People believed in and searched for islands in the Atlantic that turned out not to exist, like Antillia (after which the Antilles were named), St. Brendan’s Island, Mayda,, Satanazes, and Hy-Brasil. Europeans believed that there were either continents that the ancients had described that had not yet been explored, or that lands existed that had not been described by the ancients or in the Bible. They had already discovered islands like the Azores that were unknown to the ancients.
The point, too, is that the sailing technology was becoming more capable of voyages of thousands of miles; ships had sailed several thousand miles already, to the south of Africa and then to India.
Plus, the big secret and guarded route of the Portuguese was (as mentioned by others above) to sail away from the coast of Africa to get the proper winds. I speculate it was bound to happen sooner or later that someone would end up like Cabral, or from another country sailing a bit too far west to avoid the Portuguese.
Then it would have been the same result - “here’s a stop we can use to re-provision on our way to find a route to China”. Except, “Caramba, every direction we sail we hit land!”
Plus, India or not, the Spanish seemed to be ready to create new colonies and settlements.
Up to now, neither of us has felt the need to provide cites. But if you want them, I’d recommend The Discoverers: A History of Man’s Search to Know His World and Himself by Daniel J. Boorstin and A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age by William Manchester. They both illustrate the mental changes that defined the era as much as the physical discoveries.
Speak for yourself. I’ve been providing detailed cites all along, with names, dates, and links. As I have noted above, my case is based on having read dozens of accounts of early exploration and colonization, many based on primary sources. You’ve provided nothing but opinion. And citing general secondary sources provides no support for the specifics of the argument.
What I would like a cite for is cases in which Europeans in the early 1500s found major new lands with valuable resources (like Brazil) and completely ignored them because they weren’t on the way to Asia.
Cabral initially believed Brazil just to be a large island. But once he had sailed down the coast, he immediately began to suspect it was a large continent. He sent a ship to inform the Portuguese crown of its discovery. There was immediate followup the next year by Coelho and Vespucci. Their explorations and that of others established that it was a continent within a just a few years. This had nothing to do with Columbus.
You can’t just keep ignoring this information and stating that what happened wouldn’t have happened.
Even if the mindset was a rigid as you claim, once an actual discovery had been made that would have changed. Europeans weren’t going to ignore a valuable new territory simply because it hadn’t been mentioned in the Bible.
Unless of course, Cabral went "accidentally on purpose’ off course to find Brazil, as many think,* and *he was influenced by the discoveries of Columbus… as he well might have been.
I’d also suggest reading up on the history of cartography. engineer cited Eratosthenes early on. But the knowledge of the ancients was not accurately conveyed to medieval Europe.
For example, I just finished A History of the World in 12 Maps, Brotton. 460 pretty dense pages on the difficulty of portraying a sphere on a flat surface. Starts off with Ptolemy/Alexandria. Had a detailed explanation of the various global maps/perceptions circulating in the 15th century, including what they think were the maps Columbus mistakenly relied on.
Re: America rather than Columbia - again read your cartography. Someone correctly mentioned the Dutch. There are entire books on the Waldseemuller map - widely accepted as the first world map identifying a land mass as America. Also discussed at some length in the “12 maps” book.
While you’re at it, read up on Harrison’s amazing chronometer. Fascinating stuff.
The history of European exploration and exploitation is a fascinating topic, and determinative of so many aspects of the current world. I’m amazed that it is not more generally enjoyed.
BTW - not that anyone really cares, but I have not yet encountered the thread in which Colibri was off base. This thread is no exception.
Even if he had been influenced by Columbus, his identification of Brazil as a new continent was not influenced by Columbus, because Columbus refused to believe he had found a new continent, even though Columbus had encountered the South American mainland on his third voyage in 1498.
Yes. But then Cabral was promptly forgotten. And, the fact the Columbus insisted it was the Indies didnt stop Spain from exploiting it, it’s essentially trivia . That dog dont hunt.
The question remains- if not for Columbus, when would Europeans have “discovered” America?
I agree it wouldnt have taken long. But citing Cabral as proof that it would have only been eight years later is doubtful. If Cabral was influenced by Columbus, as is often thought, then it could have taken decades longer. But not centuries, agreed.
No, he wasn’t “promptly forgotten,” and the discovery itself was followed up the next year and over the next several decades. The fact that several centuries later Cabral’s role had become obscure doesn’t mean it wasn’t well known in the early 1500s. And Columbus himself suffered somewhat the same fate several centuries after his discoveries.
Still Cabral may or may not have independent of Columbus. It might have taken a couple of decades for another Portuguese explorer to be blown off course, realize what he had found, and get back to report it.
