[morwen edhelwen]

Originally Posted by jallanite

From the “Akallabêth″:

For Ilúvatar cast back the Great Seas west of Middle-earth, and the Empty Lands east of it, and new lands and new seas were made; and the world was diminished, for Valinor and Eressëa were taken from it into the realm of hidden things.

Middle-earth is the Afro-Eurasian super-continent of our world. Presumably places east of it in the present world come from “the Empty Lands” and the “new lands” mentioned here. The Caribbean would be on the eastern coast of these “new lands”.

Note that this account presents the world being flat with Valinor and Eressëa being on its eastern edge up to the point of the sinking of Númenor. But Tolkien in his later writings took his early accounts of his world as being Mannish legend, often garblings of the truth. Valinor and Eressëa must be understood as being on the other side of some kind of inter-dimensional gateway. And the Americas and the Caribbean long before in their current locations.

The Sunlands in The Lord of the Rings refers to southern lands. See http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Sunlands . I suspect who ever wrote about “the ‘Sunlands’ near Tol Eressea” was just very confused.

Thanks, jallanite! I admit that I don't own a copy of the Sil.