Spain keeps the discovery of America secret?

Could it happen and what would be the consequences?

I was thinking along the following lines:

Columbus dies on the return from his first voyage and his ships return almost unnoticed to a smaller habour.

Advisors convince the spanish king to keep the new route to India secret to prevent moorish pirates from raiding the expected tradelines.

A religous order is founded to operate all ships going to the new world (its members are forbidden to talk while on shore). Colonists are taken from the poor, mercenaries and criminals and forbidden to return to Spain.

Over the next decades Spainsh colonies in the carribean slowly grow, while the rest of Europe focuses on the route around Africa.
 
Pretty much impossible; if the Spanish kept it secret, it would have hampered their colonization efforts and the British/Frenc/Portugese would have found it first. Its as simple as that basically.
 
And it must be noted that Western European fishermen had fished off the Grand Banks decades before Columbus, so it was just a matter of time.
 
The Portuguese first hit Brazil when they were intending to go round Africa: the South Equatorial got them and they ended up in the western hemisphere quite by accident, IIRC, so no change there. For the Bristol seamen, who might have hit America in the 1480s if they hadn't kept mucking around looking for St.Brendan's island, it's probably also a matter of time.
 
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