What if Spain had said no to Colombus?

Portugal refused Colombus proposal to finance an expedition to sail west to go to Asia, and with good reason. They realised that the distance was to vast with the technology of that time and of course they were unaware of the Americas. The Spanish crown accepted Colombus proposal, even though the commission that looked at his proposal advised them to turn it down.

What if the Spanish crown had listened to the commission? What effect would that have on the further development of Spain?
 
It would have been difficult for them to get the other way, around Africa as the 1475 treaty between Portugal and Spain made it clear that Africa was Portugal's turf.
The Catholic Kings did have an issue on their hands: violent nobles off a conquest in a barely unified country. They had to do something with those. My guess is that they'd push further on what they were doing: invading North Africa, pursuing the Reconquista on the other shore.

Then, North Africa is much poorer than the Americas (except if you take Alexandria or the Levant, which I doubt Spain can do). So you'd get an uber rich Portugal completely eclipsing Spain. You'd potentially see a Portuguese Iberia, or at least Spain becoming the backwater of Portugal.

It could be the hinterland, ready for exploitation, that Portugal needs to truly become a Great Power
 
It would have been difficult for them to get the other way, around Africa as the 1475 treaty between Portugal and Spain made it clear that Africa was Portugal's turf.
The Catholic Kings did have an issue on their hands: violent nobles off a conquest in a barely unified country. They had to do something with those. My guess is that they'd push further on what they were doing: invading North Africa, pursuing the Reconquista on the other shore.

Then, North Africa is much poorer than the Americas (except if you take Alexandria or the Levant, which I doubt Spain can do). So you'd get an uber rich Portugal completely eclipsing Spain. You'd potentially see a Portuguese Iberia, or at least Spain becoming the backwater of Portugal.

It could be the hinterland, ready for exploitation, that Portugal needs to truly become a Great Power

I posted another thread about a possible unification between Castile and Portugal if the Juana supporters won the War of Castilian Succession. Maybe you have an opinion on what the consequences would have been of this (for instance related to the Americas)?

https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...s-win-the-war-of-castilian-succession.402277/
 
I may run a-foul of the anti-conspiracy policy here, but the Portuguese kings and their advisors may have been well aware of the existence of the Americas. The one substantive finding by Gavin Menzies was turning up maps in Portugal that indicated that Portuguese ships may have well reached the Americas before 1492 (of course he attributed them to the Chinese). They had no interest in backing Columbus, were really quick to "accidentally" discover Brazil shortly after the Columbus voyages, and had gotten the line dividing the world fixed just so they could make off with Brazil. Portugal was too small to exploit any Portuguese discovery of the Americas, so had an interest in keeping quiet about it.

Anyway without Columbus, presumably at some point someone makes the trip, maybe Columbus himself with English backing. The significance of Columbus was that he really was a good sailor, so without him going first we may have had some colossal failures until someone made it across, and more importantly since he sailed for Castille he put the Spanish in the lead to take over Mexico and Peru and establish their empire, and that was obviously important. Without Spain, France would have been the most likely country to create an empire in the Americas.
 
I may run a-foul of the anti-conspiracy policy here, but the Portuguese kings and their advisors may have been well aware of the existence of the Americas. The one substantive finding by Gavin Menzies was turning up maps in Portugal that indicated that Portuguese ships may have well reached the Americas before 1492 (of course he attributed them to the Chinese). They had no interest in backing Columbus, were really quick to "accidentally" discover Brazil shortly after the Columbus voyages, and had gotten the line dividing the world fixed just so they could make off with Brazil. Portugal was too small to exploit any Portuguese discovery of the Americas, so had an interest in keeping quiet about it.

Anyway without Columbus, presumably at some point someone makes the trip, maybe Columbus himself with English backing. The significance of Columbus was that he really was a good sailor, so without him going first we may have had some colossal failures until someone made it across, and more importantly since he sailed for Castille he put the Spanish in the lead to take over Mexico and Peru and establish their empire, and that was obviously important. Without Spain, France would have been the most likely country to create an empire in the Americas.

Very interesting post.
 
I may run a-foul of the anti-conspiracy policy here, but the Portuguese kings and their advisors may have been well aware of the existence of the Americas. The one substantive finding by Gavin Menzies was turning up maps in Portugal that indicated that Portuguese ships may have well reached the Americas before 1492 (of course he attributed them to the Chinese). They had no interest in backing Columbus, were really quick to "accidentally" discover Brazil shortly after the Columbus voyages, and had gotten the line dividing the world fixed just so they could make off with Brazil. Portugal was too small to exploit any Portuguese discovery of the Americas, so had an interest in keeping quiet about it.

Anyway without Columbus, presumably at some point someone makes the trip, maybe Columbus himself with English backing. The significance of Columbus was that he really was a good sailor, so without him going first we may have had some colossal failures until someone made it across, and more importantly since he sailed for Castille he put the Spanish in the lead to take over Mexico and Peru and establish their empire, and that was obviously important. Without Spain, France would have been the most likely country to create an empire in the Americas.
I would agree we might not know some stuff but I disagree on your timeline.

First you have Bartolomé Dias in 1488, hugging the coast until he reached the Indian Ocean. This is a long and unforgiving road because of bad currents.
Ten years after, Gama does a nice arc, almost reaching Brazil and landing exactly where he needs to. I admit it's suspicious.

However, I'd think Colombus did reach there before the Portuguese. If not, the Portuguese might have claimed it and bullied the Pope so they could have it instead of Spain. If they had reached it before 1492, they would only have to point out to a Padrao that surely they'd have erected.

The fact they didn't claim a padrao tells us they didn't reach the Americas.

Then, why not between 1492 and 1500? Well, they first wanted to make sure they could reach India and that Spain wouldn't follow them. If the African road was a bust, they wanted to make sure they'd have as much resource as possible to get the Americas. Once they got to India, lo and behold, Cabral discovered Brazil in his next voyage
This didn't mean they didn't discover Brazil before, as you mentioned, the fact they fought for the Tordesillas line to be pushed can suggest this, but that they didn't make it official until later
 
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