The Guano Islands Act (, enacted August 18, 1856, codified at §§ 1411-1419) is a

United States federal law The law of the United States comprises many levels of Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution of the United States, Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the ...

passed by the Congress that enables citizens of the United States to take possession of unclaimed islands containing guano deposits in the name of the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The islands can be located anywhere, so long as they are not occupied by citizens of another country and not within the jurisdiction of another government. It also empowers the president to use the military to protect such interests and establishes the criminal jurisdiction of the United States in these territories.

Background

In the 1840s, guano became a prized agricultural fertilizer and source of saltpeter for gunpowder. The U.S. began importing it in 1843 through New York. By the early 1850s, the U.K. imported over 200,000 tons a year, and U.S. imports totaled about 760,000 tons. The "guano mania" of the 1850s led to high prices in an oligopolistic market, government attempts to control prices, fear of resource exhaustion, and eventually the enactment of the ''Guano Islands Act of 1856'' in August 1856. The Act authorizes U.S. citizens to take possession of unclaimed islands containing guano for the U.S., empowers the President to protect such claims with military intervention, and establishes jurisdiction of criminal offenses under the laws of the United States within the territories, thus claimed. This encouraged American entrepreneurs to search for and exploit new deposits on tiny islands and reefs in the Caribbean and Pacific. This was the beginning of the concept of

insular area In the law of the United States, an insular area is a U.S.-associated jurisdiction that is not part of a U.S. state or the Washington, D.C., District of Columbia. This includes fourteen Territories of the United States, U.S. territories adminis ...

in U.S. territories. Up until this time, any territory acquired by the U.S. was considered to have become an integral part of the country unless changed by

treaty A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by international law. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention ...

and eventually to have the opportunity to become a state of the Union. With insular areas, land could be held by the federal government without the prospect of it ever becoming a state in the Union. Under the Act, the U.S. gained control of around 94 islands. By 1903, 66 of these islands were recognized as territories of the U.S.

Wording

Criminal jurisdiction

Section 6 provides that criminal acts on or adjacent to these territories "shall be deemed committed on the high seas, on board a merchant ship or vessel belonging to the United States; and shall be punished according to the laws of the United States relating to such ships or vessels and offenses on the high seas". The provision was considered and ruled constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in '' Jones v. United States'', .

Result

The Act continues to be part of the law of the United States. The most recent Guano Islands Act claim was made in 1997 to

Navassa Island Navassa Island (; ; , sometimes ) is an uninhabited island in the Caribbean Sea. Located east of Jamaica, south of Cuba, and west of Jérémie on the Tiburon Peninsula of Haiti, it is subject to an ongoing territorial dispute between Haiti and ...

. However, the claim was denied because an American court ruled the island was already under American jurisdiction (a claim

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

disputes).

Claims

While more than 100 islands have been claimed for the United States under the Guano Islands Act, all but ten have been withdrawn. The Act specifically allows the islands to be considered possessions of the U.S. The Act does not specify the territory's status after private U.S. interests abandon it or the guano is exhausted, creating neither obligation nor prohibition of retaining possession. Current islands still claimed by the United States under the Act are: * Baker Island * Howland Island * Jarvis Island *

Johnston Atoll Johnston Atoll is an Unincorporated territories of the United States, unincorporated territory of the United States, under the jurisdiction of the United States Air Force (USAF). The island is closed to public entry, and limited access for mana ...

* Kingman Reef/ Danger Rock * Midway Atoll *

(claimed by Haiti) * Bajo Nuevo Bank (disputed with

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

) * Serranilla Bank (disputed with Colombia) * Swains Island (part of

American Samoa American Samoa is an Territories of the United States, unincorporated and unorganized territory of the United States located in the Polynesia region of the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean. Centered on , it is southeast of the island count ...

; no evidence that guano was mined. Claimed by

Tokelau Tokelau (; ; known previously as the Union Islands, and, until 1976, known officially as the Tokelau Islands) is a dependent territory of New Zealand in the southern Pacific Ocean. It consists of three tropical coral atolls: Atafu, Nukunonu, an ...

)

Disputed claims

A few islands claimed by the United States under the ''Guano Act of 1856'' are disputed. * Navassa Island — ''de facto'' US control. To cement the U.S. claim to

against Haiti, President James Buchanan issued Executive Orders establishing United States territorial jurisdiction beyond just the Guano Act of 1856. The United States Supreme Court in 1890 ruled the Guano Act constitutional and, citing the actions of the Executive Branch, amongst other points in law, determined Navassa Island as pertaining to the United States. Control of Navassa Island was transferred by the Department of the Interior to the Director of the Office of Insular Affairs under Order No. 3205 on January 16, 1997. The Department of the Interior and Insular Affairs would later grant administration responsibilities to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service under Order No. 3210 on December 3, 1999. Order No 3210 also established a territorial sea boundary for the United States around Navassa Island. * Serranilla Bank and the Bajo Nuevo Bank. Serranilla Bank and the Bajo Nuevo Bank were ruled to be territory of

by the International Court of Justice in 2001, against a claim by Nicaragua. The U.S. and Honduras have asserted claims. Colombia has granted fishing rights to

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

Private unrecognized claim

* In 1964, Leicester Hemingway, brother of author

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...

, attempted to establish a country (or more appropriately, a

micronation A micronation is a polity, political entity whose representatives claim that they belong to an independent nation or sovereign state, but which lacks legal recognition by any sovereign state. Micronations are classified separately from list o ...

) dubbed the Republic of New Atlantis, on an bamboo raft anchored with an engine block outside the territorial waters of

, using the Guano Islands Act as part of a claim to sovereignty. His apparent intention was to use the new country as the headquarters for his own International Marine Research Society, with which he planned to further marine research and protect Jamaican fishing. Neither the U.S. nor Jamaica recognized his claim before the raft was destroyed in a storm in 1966.

References

External links

Text of U.S. Code, Title 48, Chapter 8

34th Congress Statutes at Large

43rd Congress Statutes at Large

The Sovereignty of Guano Islands in the Pacific Ocean
U.S. Department of State Legal Advisor, January 9, 1933. {{United States political divisions 34th United States Congress United States federal public land legislation History of United States expansionism Law of insular areas of the United States Presidency of James Buchanan 1856 in American politics 1856 in American law August 1856 he:גואנו#חוק איי הגואנו