Navassa Island

Navassa Island is a small, uninhabited island located in the Windward Passage of the Caribbean Sea.

It sits east of Jamaica and south of Cuba. The island is also located west of the Tiburon Peninsula in Haiti.

Because of its specific location, the island is the subject of an ongoing territorial dispute. Both the United States and Haiti claim sovereignty over the land. The United States currently administers the island through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It is classified as part of the United States Minor Outlying Islands.

The history of these claims involves several different legal documents and treaties. The United States has claimed the island since 1857. This claim was made under the Guano Islands Act of 1856. This law allowed the U.S. to claim islands containing guano deposits. Haiti’s claim dates back much further to the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697. That treaty recognized French control over parts of Hispaniola and nearby islands. However, the treaty did not specifically name Navassa. Haiti also points to its 1801 constitution, which claimed adjacent islands. While Navassa was not listed by name in 1801, Haiti maintains it was included. Since the 1874 constitution, Haiti has explicitly named "la Navase" as a territory it claims.

Navassa was first noted by European explorers in the early 1500s. In 1504, Christopher Columbus sent crew members by canoe to find help. They landed on Navassa during their journey to Hispaniola. The crew found the island had no water. They called it Navaza, and sailors mostly avoided it for 350 years. In 1798, a member of the French Parliament named Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry described it as a small island between Saint-Domingue and Jamaica. This early documentation helped establish the island's place in regional geography.

During the mid-19th century, the island became a site for intense industrial activity. The primary goal was mining guano phosphate. Guano is an organic fertilizer made from bird droppings. It was a vital resource for American agriculture at the time. In 1857, Captain Peter Duncan claimed the island for the U.S. because of these rich deposits. He argued the island was not under the jurisdiction of any other government. The Navassa Phosphate Company later built large mining facilities on the island.

They constructed barracks for 140 black contract laborers from Maryland. They also built houses for white supervisors, a blacksmith shop, a church, and warehouses. Workers used dynamite and pick-axes to extract the guano. They then moved it via rail cars to Lulu Bay.

Life on the island was often difficult and dangerous for the workers. In September 1875, the Indianola hurricane struck the island. This storm caused an estimated $25,000 in damage and destroyed the rail lines. Later, in 1889, a riot occurred due to poor conditions and the intense tropical heat. Five supervisors died during this event. This led to legal battles that eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1890. The Court ruled in Jones v. United States that the Guano Act was constitutional. This decision helped establish a legal history for the island under U.S. law.

Industrial mining eventually ended due to war and bankruptcy. During the Spanish-American War in 1898, the proximity to Cuba and Puerto Rico made operations impossible. The Phosphate Company could not find ships to deliver supplies. In July 1898, Haitian groups occupied the island and seized company assets. The Navassa Phosphate Company subsequently went bankrupt. The island was sold at auction in the United States in September 1900. Between 1857 and 1898, workers had removed approximately 200,000 tons of phosphate deposits.

In the 20th century, the island's use shifted toward maritime safety and science. The U.S. Lighthouse Service identified the island as a good location for a light in 1905. Because shipping increased after the Panama Canal opened in 1914, a lighthouse was built in 1917.

A wireless telegraphy station was also established. The island remained uninhabited after the lighthouse became automatic in 1929. In 1999, the U.S. established the Navassa Island National Wildlife Refuge. This protects 62 square miles of land and a 12 nautical mile radius of marine habitat. The refuge is home to over 5,000 nesting red-footed boobies and four species of endemic lizards. It remains a vital site for studying Caribbean biodiversity.