Could Columbus have suspected the New World lay on his path to India?
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Accepted answer
I think this is a valid question. But the answer is a rather resounding no. For one thing, we have no shred of evidence for such a conjecture. For another, this conjecture cannot be squared at all with the fact that Columbus to his dying day insisted on having actually landed in India - had he been dissimulating about his knowledge of the existence of America, surely after he got there he could have come clean.
The actual story how the great voyage was conceived is told with great detail (not all of it savoury) by Lord Acton in chapter 2 of his lectures on modern history.
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