Final answer:
European sugar plantations expanded westward from the eastern Mediterranean after Saladin's reconquest of Jerusalem due to the need for new cultivation areas, leading to the growth of plantations in the New World and the consequent rise of the Atlantic slave trade.
Step-by-step explanation:
The reason European sugar plantations expanded westward from the eastern Mediterranean islands after Saladin's reconquest of Jerusalem was the interruption of European sugar production due to the loss of access to traditional cane-growing areas. Saladin's reconquest meant that Europeans needed to find new areas suitable for sugar cultivation, as the eastern Mediterranean became inaccessible. This coincided with the Portuguese and Spanish discovery that sugarcane grew well on the eastern Atlantic islands off the African coast in the 1400s. As the demand for sugar in Europe grew during the 17th century and beyond, European nations sought to grow sugarcane in colonies that they established in the New World, particularly in the Caribbean. The cultivation and processing of sugarcane were labor-intensive, leading to the rise of the Atlantic slave trade and the use of forced labor on a vast scale. While sugarcane brought great wealth, it had a devastating human cost, relying heavily on the enslavement of African people.