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82 Mediterraneans
eastern Mediterranean, but now available within the Mediterranean
Atlantic to consumers in Iberia and northern Europe.
After 1500, this region underwent a further change in character
as it became a staging post for access to the newly discovered
Americas; in that sense, its existence as a homogeneous ‘Mediterranean’
was rather brief. That the region saw the introduction
of Iberian culture and religion from its north-eastern flank
goes without saying: the Canary islanders were Christianized
before they died out, and the Portuguese islands were settled by
a solely Christian population, at least in theory; the reality was
that Iberian conflicts were played out in the islands, including
the Canaries, and the presence of crypto-Jews, with a Canary
Inquisition to deal with them, comes as no great surprise. São
Tomé was specifically chosen as the home for deported Jewish
children from Portugal, who were to be brought up as Christians
far from parental influence. The conquest of the islands
was even given a modest crusading dimension, though how
Henry the Navigator could claim that in conquering empty
Madeira he had scored a victory against Islam is a mystery.
6. a trans-oceanic mediterranean:
the caribbean
The opening of the Atlantic achieved its next phase with the
discovery by Columbus of the Caribbean. This is a sea that
exhibits many of the obvious physical characteristics of a Mediterranean:
like the Classic Mediterranean it is a space between
continents, North America and South America, following,
indeed, the joins between continents rather as the shores of
the Classic Mediterranean trace the limits of Europe, Asia,
and Africa. Its eastern boundary, however, consists of a line of
islands, close enough to be in easy contact with one another, and
forming a great semicircle from Cuba and the Bahamas down to
Trinidad, which is effectively an offshore extension of the
South American landmass. Cuba itself reaches out towards the
peninsula of Yucatán, though by the fifteenth century it had no
contact with the residue of Maya civilization on the mainland.
However, there was apparently limited contact with the Timicua
and other peoples of what was to become Florida; the
Florida Indians included communities that depended on the