Did Columbus ever realize that he had discovered the New World, or did he die still thinking he had landed in India?

Ummi_K

"Columbus went to his grave believing he had reached the shores of Cathay, and that he was a divine missionary, ordained by God to spread Christianity into the New World." http://www.cubaheritage.com/subs.asp?sID=48&cID=3 Numerous historians have tried to describe Columbus' impact on the new world and his impression of it. Howard Zinn, in his 'A People's History of the United States', describes that 1492 landing: "On October 12, a sailor called Rodrigo saw the early morning moon shining on white sands, and cried out. It was an island in the Bahamas, the Caribbean sea. The first man to sight land was supposed to get a yearly pension of 10,000 maravedis for life, but Rodrigo never got it. Columbus claimed he had seen a light the evening before. He [Columbus] got the reward." CNN reports that "[e]xactly where he set foot remains a subject of much contention, but he named the island San Salvador." http://edition.cnn.com/2004/world/americas/08/02/columbus/ Zinn describes further how Columbus and his crew "...[a]pproaching land, they were met by the Arawak Indians, who swam out to greet them... they had no iron, but they wore tiny gold ornaments in their ears. "This was to have enormous consequences; it led Columbus to take some of them aboard ship as prisoners because he insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold. He then sailed to what is now Cuba, then to Hispaniola (the island which today consists of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.) "Columbus' report to the court in Madrid was extravagant. He insisted he had reached Asia (it was Cuba) and an island off the coast of China (Hispaniola)." Oct 11 04, 6:40 PM

Arpeggionist

Colombus made three voyages to the New World. During the first two the fact just didn't register in his mind and he'd believed he'd reached Japan or even China. By the time the third voyage went underway, he'd finally realized that he wasn't in the East. Instead he now thought he'd discovered the Biblical Paradise, the Garden of Eden. Oct 12 04, 2:04 AM