Why did Columbus cross the mid-Atlantic instead of exploring from Greenland?

Question

Greenland was known to Europe since long before 1492. In fact, Leif Erikson reached modern Canadian lands around the year 1000, coming from Greenland. That journey was forgotten, but he chose a logical exploration path by starting from the westernmost land known.

So why didn't Columbus do the same? Seems a much bigger leap to try the mid-Atlantic first. Surely they knew, via dead reckoning and the like, the Greenland coasts were much more west than Portugal? In the summer and fall, the ocean around south Greenland should be ice-free enough to navigate.

In fact, in the year 1500, Portugal sent someone to Greenland to find a Northwest Passage to Asia. Why didn't they do this first with Columbus?

Answer 1

There's a lot in the question that seems to be assuming modern knowledge that Columbus most likely did not possess.

There is no good evidence the Iberian maritime community in the late 15th century had any knowledge of Greenland. The European settlement there did not exist by the time the printing press was invented, so any knowledge of it (unlike Portugal's and Columbus' discoveries) would have had to be hand-copied. The Danes knew about it, but they also laid claim to it, and this was an era where kingdoms jealously guarded maritime information as state secrets. So what knowledge was known would not have been as complete as what the Danes had access to, and no Iberian nation could lay claim to any route found using it.

Remember, Columbus was not trying to "explore" or find the Americas, or anything like that. He was trying to get to the (East) Indies. Spain and Portugal already had possession of convenient sets of islands in the Atlantic (the Canaries and the Azores respectively) which would be great staging points for getting there.

Wikipedia has a very convenient map showing Toscanelli's 1474 map superimposed on the actual globe projection. Columbus was sort of a disciple of his and used this map and others like it for his conception of world geography.

You can see that not only did it have no concept of Greenland, but where it actually exists would be much further from where he thought the Indies were than the Canaries. Not only that, but Columbus thought the Indies were even closer than this map shows^*. To be exact, he thought the Canaries were only 3,700 km from the Indies (rather than 20,000!).

What he did have was a correct conception of the trade winds in the Atlantic. These blow in roughly a clockwise direction in the northern hemisphere. What this means is that if you try to sail from the Canaries straight west, the winds will be helping you. However, if you try to sail from Greenland southwest, you'd be going straight into the wind. So even if it were an otherwise good route that someone knew about, sailing that direction from Greenland would not be an efficient way to cross the Atlantic.

^{* - He underestimated the distance between those longitude lines}

Answer 2

Let's suppose that Columbus knew about Greenland.

1. European colonies in Greenland were abandoned by that time. Therefore sailing there was actually useless, because it would be impossible to get supplies (except for fresh water) or guides there. It was just an empty island.

2. He thought that east Asia was closer, so the estimated distance between Asia and Spain was almost the same that the distance between Greenland and Spain. So Greenland wasn't close.

3. Greenland latitude is 60°, while the known areas of Asia were below 40°.

But, probably Columbus didn't know about early Viking explorations, and the routes they followed.

Finally, exploration in North America for a passage to Asia was after Columbus travels, when they realized that a whole continent was in the middle of the ocean between Europe and east Asia.

Answer 3

The question seems to be based on something of a false premise. Although the great circle routes from Europe to north American cities do often pass close to or over Greenland, Columbus was starting from close to the southern tip of Europe and he ended up in the Caribbean. His first voyage was from Palos de Frontera and he initially made land on Plana Cays, Bahamas. That's pretty close to being Seville to Crooked Island, and the great circle route between those two points is as follows, with the route via an airport at the southern tip of Greenland shown for comparison.

^{Image source: gcmap.com.}

The direct route shown is the shortest possible route, ignoring all practicalities of sailing, but two things can be seen immediately. First, it goes nowhere near Greenland. The direct route is 4100 miles but going via Greenland adds nearly 30% to that. Second, the great circle route involves initially sailing almost due west: the initial heading is 278°, which is only slightly north of due west.

The only routes from Europe to North America that go close to Greenland are those from northern Europe to points north or west of the US Midwest. For example, even Manchester to Chicago misses Greenland quite comfortably if the shortest route is taken (which it isn't always, since the route actually taken depends on winds and traffic).

^{Image source: gcmap.com.}

Answer 4

General navigation practice of the time was to find your latitude, and then sail along that parallel until you reached your destination, as determining longitude was problematic at best. It also happened to give him the best use of the direction of the trade winds (blowing west from his departure point)