The Lucayans living in San Salavador and other parts of Bahamas had allegedly colonized these islands just 200-250 years prior to the arrival of Columbus, migrating from the Turks & Caicos, and probably from Hispaniola earlier than that.
Let's consider a scenario where the Lucayans, by some reason, did not migrate north of Turks & Caicos and when Columbus had arrived to San Salvador and neighbouring islands had found nobody, so he had returned to Europe without setting any contact with Native American population. What would have happened next? Would he had returned anyway in order to explore further or rather he would have found to explore that area 'unworthy' as he would have found just empty, uninteresting islands? (Remind that the Lucayans talked about the existence of gold and wealth in other islands and also in Cuba, and this obviously stimulated further exploration).
Let's consider a scenario where the Lucayans, by some reason, did not migrate north of Turks & Caicos and when Columbus had arrived to San Salvador and neighbouring islands had found nobody, so he had returned to Europe without setting any contact with Native American population. What would have happened next? Would he had returned anyway in order to explore further or rather he would have found to explore that area 'unworthy' as he would have found just empty, uninteresting islands? (Remind that the Lucayans talked about the existence of gold and wealth in other islands and also in Cuba, and this obviously stimulated further exploration).