View source for Guano Islands Act

{{short description|Congressional act of the United States}}
{{Redirect|Guano Islands|the island in Kiribati| Enderbury Island
 |the island in Antarctica|Guano Island (Antarctica)}}
{{Use American English|date=June 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2016}}
{{Infobox U.S. legislation
| shorttitle = Guano Islands Act of 1856
| longtitle = An Act to authorize Protection to be given to Citizens of the United States who may discover Deposits of Guano
| signeddate = August 18, 1856
| enacted by = 34th
| effective date = August 18, 1856
| public law url = 
| cite public law = {{USStatute|34|164}}
| cite statutes at large = {{USStat|11|119}}
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| title amended = <!--US code titles changed-->
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| leghisturl = https://www.congress.gov/bill/34th-congress/senate-bill/339/all-info
| introducedin = Senate
| introducedbill = S. 339
| introducedby = [[William H. Seward]] ([[Republican Party (United States)|R]]–[[New York (state)|NY]])
| introduceddate = May 26, 1856
| committees = [[U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations|Foreign Relations]]
| passedbody1 = Senate
| passeddate1 = July 24, 1856<ref>{{Cite news |date=July 25, 1856 |title=XXXIVth CONGRESS----First Session.; SENATE. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. |language=en |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1856/07/25/77054566.html?zoom=14.61 |access-date=2022-05-21}}</ref>
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| passedbody2 = House
| passedas2 = <!-- used if the second body changes the name of the legislation -->
| passeddate2 = August 16, 1856<ref>{{Cite news |date=August 18, 1856 |title=Article 12 -- No Title |language=en |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1856/08/18/77056197.html?zoom=14.620000000000001 |access-date=2022-05-21}}</ref>
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| signedpresident = [[Franklin Pierce]]
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The '''Guano Islands Act''' ({{USStat|11|119}}, enacted August 18, 1856, codified at {{usc-title-chap|48|8}} §§ 1411-1419) is a [[List of United States federal legislation|United States federal law]] passed by the [[United States Congress|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 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 of the United States|president]]  to use the military to protect such interests and establishes the criminal jurisdiction of the United States in these territories.

==Background==
[[File:Orchilla Guano.png|thumb|right|Guano importation was a major business, as this 1873 advertisement attests.]]
In the 1840s, [[guano]] became a prized agricultural [[fertilizer]] and source of [[sodium nitrate|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.<ref>Smil, Vaclav. (2004). ''Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production.'' Massachusetts: The MIT Press, pp.42.</ref> The "guano mania" of the 1850s led to high prices in an [[oligopoly|oligopolistic]] market, government attempts to [[price control|control prices]], fear of resource exhaustion, and eventually the enactment of the ''Guano Islands Act of 1856'' in August 1856.<ref>Skaggs & Wines, R. A. (1985). ''Fertilizer in America.'' Philadelphia: Temple University Press, pp. 54-70.</ref> 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 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]] 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.

On November 22, 1971, the United States handed over the [[Swan Islands, Honduras|Swan Islands]] to [[Honduras]] after signing the {{ill|Treaty of the Swan Islands|es|Tratado de las islas del Cisne}}.<ref>[https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20851/volume-851-I-12199-English.pdf Treaty of the Swan Islands] UN</ref> Honduras began exercising this sovereignty on September 1, 1972.<ref>{{cite book |title=United States Treaties and Other International Agreements |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LICPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA2648 |year=1972 |publisher=[[Department of State]] |language=es |page=2648 |volume=23 |issue=3}}</ref>

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.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Ecology_of_Agroecosystems.html?id=AFRQSuQGHiIC The Ecology of Agroecosystems] p149</ref>

==Wording==
{{quote|Whenever any citizen of the United States discovers a deposit of guano on any island, rock, or key, not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other Government, and not occupied by the citizens of any other Government, and takes [[peaceable possession]] thereof, and occupies the same, such island, rock, or key may, at the discretion of the president, be considered as appertaining to the United States.|Section 1 of the Guano Islands Act}}

== 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".<ref>Guano Islands Act ({{USStat|11|119}}</ref> The provision was considered and ruled constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in ''[[Jones v. United States (1890)|Jones v. United States]]'', {{ussc|137|202|1890}}.

==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]]. However, the claim was denied because an American court ruled the island was already under American jurisdiction (a claim [[Haiti]] disputes).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/07/08/by-kevin-underhill-the-guano-islands-act/|title=The Guano Islands Act|first=Kevin|last=Underhill|date=July 8, 2014|via=www.washingtonpost.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Fesperman |first=Dan |date=1998-07-19 |title=A Man's Claim to Guano Knee-Deep in Bureaucracy |work=Baltimore Sun |url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1998-07-19-1998200032-story.html |access-date=2022-12-07}}</ref>

==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]]<ref name="oia">{{cite web|url=https://www.doi.gov/oia/islands/acquisitionprocess|title=Acquisition Process of Insular Areas|publisher=[[United States Government]], [[United States Department of the Interior|Department of the Interior]]| access-date=May 9, 2010}}</ref>
*[[Howland Island]]<ref name="oia" />
*[[Jarvis Island]]<ref name="oia" />
*[[Johnston Atoll]]<ref name="oia" />
*[[Kingman Reef]]/[[Danger Rock]]<ref name="oia" />
*[[Midway Atoll]]<ref>{{cite book|last=Stahr |first= Walter |year=2012 |title= Seward: Lincoln's Indispensable Man | location= New York | publisher= Simon and Schuster | quote= several islands first claimed under the guano island law | isbn= 978-1-4391-2794-0}}; Kindle location 2856 of 15675.</ref>
*[[Navassa Island]]<ref name="oia" /> (claimed by Haiti)
*[[Bajo Nuevo Bank]]<ref name="oia" /> (disputed with [[Colombia]])
*[[Serranilla Bank]]<ref name="oia" /> (disputed with Colombia)
*[[Swains Island]] (part of [[American Samoa]]; no evidence that guano was mined. Claimed by [[Tokelau]])<ref name="Skaggs">{{cite book|page= 213 |first= Jimmy M. |last=Skaggs |year=1994 |title= The Great Guano Rush: Entrepreneurs and American Overseas Expansion |publisher= Palgrave Macmillan US |isbn= 978-0-312-10316-3}}</ref>

==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 [[Navassa Island]] 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.<ref>''Jones v. United States'', 137 U. S. 202 (1890).</ref> 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 {{convert| 12|nmi |adj=on}} 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 [[Colombia]] by the International Court of Justice in 2001, against a claim by Nicaragua.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Latest developments {{!}} Territorial and Maritime Dispute (Nicaragua v. Colombia) {{!}} International Court of Justice|url=https://www.icj-cij.org/en/case/124|access-date=2021-04-30|website=www.icj-cij.org}}</ref> The U.S. and Honduras have asserted claims. Colombia has granted fishing rights to [[Jamaica]].

=== Private unrecognized claim ===

* In 1964, [[Leicester Hemingway]], brother of author [[Ernest Hemingway]], attempted to establish a country (or more appropriately, a [[micronation]]) dubbed the [[New Atlantis (micronation)|Republic of New Atlantis]], on an {{convert|8|×|30|ft|m|adj=on}} bamboo raft anchored with an engine block outside the territorial waters of [[Jamaica]], 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.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://eupdates.hrc.utexas.edu/site/PageServer?pagename=Hemingway_New_Atlantis |access-date= December 7, 2016 |title= Contents of a Country: Leicester Hemingway's Republic of New Atlantis |first= Russell |last= Hale |publisher= University of Texas Humanities Research Center |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131111161838/http://eupdates.hrc.utexas.edu/site/PageServer?pagename=Hemingway_New_Atlantis |archive-date= November 11, 2013 |df= mdy-all }}</ref><ref>{{cite book| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=03d5AgAAQBAJ&pg=PT220 | title= Surveying the American Tropics: A Literary Geography from New York to Rio | year=2013| publisher= Liverpool University Press| isbn= 9781781389409 }}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Islands|Law}}
*[[List of Guano Island claims]]
*[[United States Miscellaneous Pacific Islands]]
*[[United States Minor Outlying Islands]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://assembler.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode48/usc_sup_01_48_10_8.html Text of U.S. Code, Title 48, Chapter 8]
* [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=011/llsl011.db&recNum=140 34th Congress Statutes at Large]
* [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=018/llsl018.db&recNum=1152 43rd Congress Statutes at Large]
* [https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/b3266546-ba11-41ea-b0ad-df1b40106580/content The Sovereignty of Guano Islands in the Pacific Ocean], U.S. Department of State Legal Advisor, January 9, 1933.

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{{United States political divisions}}

[[Category:Guano Islands Act| ]]
[[Category:34th United States Congress]]
[[Category:United States federal public land legislation]]
[[Category:History of United States expansionism]]
[[Category:Law of insular areas of the United States]]
[[Category:Presidency of James Buchanan]]
[[Category:1856 in American politics]]
[[Category:1856 in American law]]
[[Category:August 1856]]

[[he:גואנו#חוק איי הגואנו]]