As an example of this, note that 14th and 15th century maps of Europe that included the Atlantic had all manner of bogus islands on them with the few real islands mixed in. For example Hy-Brasil (mentioned above by @DrDeth; it was no relation at all to Brazil and was supposedly somewhere near Ireland) and Antillia (the Antilles get their name from this one).
Does it count as a tip if it was bogus? I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of mariners who strayed upon deserted stretches of coast in the Atlantic (Iceland, Greenland, Ascension, St. Helena, etc.) came back with claims of visiting Asia.
Well true, but the Pilgrims showed up 120 years after Columbus. There were plenty of European trips to the New World prior to then. The local native who spoke English learned it in Europe-he had been kidnapped and sold into slavery in Portugal, escaped to England and hitched a ride back to the New World.
Oops. Sorry about posting the same info later. Mr. Dibble did a much better job. 
Bristol and the hunt for Hy-brasil, sure. The Cod banks? Sure. Vinland? Unlikely.
During most of the 1500s the Natives had no desire-in fact a strong disincentive-to allow sailors to land. Europeans were considered hairy smelly savages that could not be trusted. And until European military technology advanced to the 1600’s the natives were quite capable of enforcing their ban. When a European ship showed up, natives made it quite clear that they weren’t welcome to land. Trade was conducted via ropes and canoes. Since the Europeans visiting N. America weren’t interested nor equipped to force an entry, disease transmission was minimized. Of course down in the Carribbean and central and S. America things were different. The reason of course was gold. Already mined gold.
As Wikipdia says:
The last reported ship to reach Greenland was a private ship that was “blown off course”, reaching Greenland in 1406, and departing in 1410 with the last news of Greenland: the burning at the stake of a condemned male witch, the insanity and death of the woman this witch was accused of attempting to seduce through witchcraft, and the marriage of the ship’s captain, Thorsteinn Ólafsson, to another Icelander, Sigríður Björnsdóttir.[34] However, there are some suggestions of much later unreported voyages from Europe to Greenland, possibly as late as the 1480s.
So Greenland was a fading memory but still within memory of those Columbus would have met, or at least their parents, perhaps. Climate at the time was the alleged cause of the demise of the Greenland colony, so probably something that discouraged frivolous voyages in northern latitudes. North Atlantic storms were I assume familiar to sailors going near Iceland; Whereas hurricanes were probably a very different novelty once Columbus was going west in the tropics.
What I don’t get is why some people are so invested in Columbus having other information we are not aware of.
The plain common sense understanding is that he didn’t.
He was trying for years to get somebody, anybody, to finance his expedition, and if he had had information from other travellers, that would have been his best possible selling point. The fact that he didn’t use that selling point is a good indication that he had no other information.
- Both his son, Fernando Columbus, and Bartolomé de las Casas attribute Columbus’ idea of sailing west only to Toscanelli.
- He never used information from other travellers as a selling point.
- If he knew about land to the north-west, he would have started in northern Europe and sailed north-west, but instead he started from Spain and sailed slightly south of west.
Occam’s Razor seems to apply.
I don’t understand why people think it’s important to make up stories and theories and about what Columbus might possibly, conceivably have known that we don’t have evidence for, when the existing evidence is sufficient.
Also, what difference would it even make if Columbus had heard some rumours?
Do we actually know what selling points he used?
And the reason why some people are “so invested in the idea” that he had other information is that it is, like you claim for the opposite, just common sense. Making the voyage based only on the information we know he had would be just crazy. Making it based on other information would be sane. Sane people are more common than crazy people, so it’s more likely that he had other information.
Yes, only his distance calculations.
He thought his calculations were right.
(But sure, nobody in history has ever done anything because they were crazy and obsessive. 
)
So let me ask again, if he had information about land to the north-west, why did he sail south-west?
Do we have solid sources for that or only 200 years after 3rd party?
I recently listened to this podcast, and the subsequent #146 for a very thorough review of Columbus’ reasoning and experiences. I recommend it highly, and thanks to Civil Guy to bringing it into this thread.
Bartolome de las Casas goes through Columbus’ presentations to the panels of experts in Portugal and Spain, and their arguments against him. Nothing is said about any stories of land to the west, only arguments about the distance, feasibility of travelling and getting back, questions abut why nobody from East Asia has ever come to Europe by that route, etc.
Bartolome de las Casas was 8 years old in 1492. And hated Columbus.
Did he really? I guess that’s why he praises Columbus at length so effusively. Where exactly did you get the idea that he hated him? Cite?
Anyway, he was in a position to know, since his father travelled with Columbus.
Proving a negative is always difficult. If you think that Columbus had heard stories about land to the west, it’s up to you to prove it. Primary sources only! 
What I sometimes wonder is if Columbus really believed in the shorter estimates or if he was just using those estimates to sell his idea to backers and his crews. Maybe he was gambling on favorable winds or intervening land masses rather than on those sketchy estimates about the distance to Asia.
All I know is that Columbus did visit Bristol. What he heard there about the New World is 100% speculation. I cheerfully admit that.
Well, to be fair, what he hated was Columbus’s slavery, and slavery in the Americas :Las Casas' Discovery: What the 'Protector of the Indians' found in America
He did start out as a supporter but he changed his mind after seeing the cruelty to the native populations.
Indeed his father did travel with Columbus, but I dont see that his father was around when Columbus pitched his ideas.
Did he? Cite?
Did you read my cite? Here is wiki:
Arriving as one of the first Spanish (and European) settlers in the Americas, Las Casas initially participated in, but eventually felt compelled to oppose, the abuses committed by colonists against the Native Americans.
He was a slaveholder to start, but then condemned the abuse of the natives. The slavery and abuse was , as we all know , started by Columbus himself.
He was the one who called the natives ‘Indios’ (Indians) which at the time only meant people from Asia. That was what he called them from the beginning. When it turned out the lands he found were not the location of rich Asian cities, he maintained they were just outlying islands and the mainland was around somewhere; he just needed to keep looking. Apparently, he went to his grave thinking he’d found the short cut to Asia.