Maltese people Maltese people The Maltese (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to Malta, and identified with the Maltese language. Malta is an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Included within the ethnic group defined by the Maltese people are the "Gozitans" (, ) who inhabit Malta's sister island, Gozo. The current Maltese people, characterised by the use of the Maltese language and by Roman Catholicism, are the descendants – through much mixing and hybridisation – of colonists from Sicily and Calabria who repopulated the Maltese islands in the beginning of the second millennium after a two-century lapse of
Duchy of the Archipelago fell to Sanudo after a five or six weeks' siege, despite the assistance rendered to the Greeks by the Genoese, Venice's main competitors. With the entire island occupied in 1210, Sanudo and his associates soon conquered Melos and the rest of the islands of the Cyclades, and he established himself as "Duke of Naxia", or "Duke of the Archipelago", with his headquarters on Naxos. Sanudo rebuilt a strong fortress and divided the island into 56 provinces, which he shared out as fiefs among the leaders of his men, most of whom were highly autonomous and apparently paid their own expenses.