Did Columbus really think he was in India? | AskHistorians Archive Observer

First, I’d like to point out that Columbus thought he had landed in the Indies, not India specifically. During the years before and during Columbus’s expeditions, what are now China, India, and Japan were called the Indies by Europeans. So, they were called Indians after the Indies, and that is also why the territory that he DID “discover” is now called the West Indies.

It’s important to note that Columbus relied heavily on personal travel notes of people like Marco Polo to know what the Indies would be like. He was not a very educated man, but he delved deep into the notebooks of men who had been to China and India to get an idea of what it would be like; he had never been there and relied entirely on personal accounts of others to explain what he would see when he arrives. He also did not at all question why his observations were different than those of the individuals before him. He simply thought he failed to recognize things that explorers before him had known about. He wrote in his first expedition, “I am the saddest man in the world because I do not recognize them.” Because of his lack of education on what he would find in the Indies as well as his heavy reliance on accounts before his, he failed to realize he had discovered a whole new world.

He DID find gold and spices in the Caribbean, so this verified—in his mind—that he had landed in the Indies. He also took “Indian” captives back with him to Spain, which is likely when the term became the common name for Natives in the Americas. His confusion was in the landscape and animals, which did not match what he read in the works of Marco Polo and other explorers.

Here is one of his writings as well. This was sent back to the Spanish crown, and the mention of the Indian Sea should help put into perspective where he specifically thought he was.