The Portuguese were doing the rational thing and taking the much rational and safer option.
Was anyone really going west before Columbus? Of course I assume the Portuguese might have discovered Brazil eventually anyway because of the ocean currents
Yeah the Portuguese keeping Brasil secret is seductive conspiracy theory.
I think that America being there at all is super hindsight-y. A priori there were no states in America that had made contact with the people’s across Eurasia and Africa. There were the Vikings, and some northern nomads.
The Pacific is huge. So big that you can’t fit it all in one hemisphere. We have had long periods with single supercontinents and no other major landmasses.
Sailing west into the Atlantic as a European was a massive gamble. Matched only by the navigators of the South Pacific, and even then they were far more competent navigators of open ocean and had techniques that Columbus didn’t have. He just had heaps of money, some great boats, and huge will.
Traveling west, reaching land, leaving enough evidence to confirm the story five centuries later, making it back, and finally, convincing other people that it happened? No.
Was anyone really going west before Columbus? Of course I assume the Portuguese might have discovered Brazil eventually anyway because of the ocean currents