The Guano Islands Act (11 Stat. 119, enacted August 18, 1856, codified at 48 U.S.C. ch. 8 §§ 1411-1419) is a United States federal law passed by the U.S. Congress that enables citizens of the United States to take possession, in the name of the United States, of unclaimed islands containing guano deposits. The islands can be located anywhere, so long as they are not occupied and not within the jurisdiction of another government. It also empowers the President of the United States to use the military to protect such interests and establishes the criminal jurisdiction of the United States in these territories.
In the 1840s, guano came to be prized as a source of saltpeter for gunpowder as well as an agricultural fertilizer.
The United States 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.[3] The "guano mania" of the 1850s led to high prices in an oligopolistic market, attempts of price control, fear of resource exhaustion, and eventually the enactment of the Guano Islands Act 1856 in August 1856.[4] The Act enables U.S. citizens to take possession of unclaimed islands containing guano for the U.S., and empowered the President to send in armed military to intervene. This encouraged American entrepreneurs to search and exploit new deposits on tiny islands and reefs in the Caribbean and in the Pacific.
This was the beginning of the concept of insular areas in U.S. territories. Up to 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 its ever becoming a state in the Union.
Under the act the US gained control of around 94 islands. By 1903, 66 of these islands were recognized as territories of the US.[5]
More than 100 islands have been claimed for the United States under the Guano Islands Act, but most claims have been withdrawn. The Act specifically allows the islands to be considered possessions of the U.S. The Act does not specify what the status of the territory is after it is abandoned by private U.S. interests or the guano is exhausted, creating neither obligation to nor prohibition of retaining possession.
As of 2022, the islands still claimed by the United States under the Act are:
Baker Island[8] Howland Island[8] Jarvis Island[8] Johnston Atoll[8] Kingman Reef/Danger Rock[8] Midway Atoll[9] Navassa Island[8] (claimed by Haiti) Bajo Nuevo Bank[8] (disputed with Colombia) Serranilla Bank[8] (disputed with Colombia) Swains Island (part of American Samoa; no evidence that guano was mined) [10]
There's all the fertilizer you need, Brandon! Go get it!
“The most terrifying force of death comes from the hands of Men who wanted to be left Alone. TRUE TERROR will arrive at these people’s door, and they will cry, scream, and beg for mercy… but it will fall upon the deaf ears of the Men who just wanted to be left alone.”
“The most terrifying force of death comes from the hands of Men who wanted to be left Alone. TRUE TERROR will arrive at these people’s door, and they will cry, scream, and beg for mercy… but it will fall upon the deaf ears of the Men who just wanted to be left alone.”
Biden Admin Quietly Urging Companies To Purchase Russian Fertilizer
Hasn't the embargo on anything Russian already been instituted?
I doubt any of this will wash. Anyway, the coming winter in former Soviet bloc countries and including Poland and Germany will be much better if they could find some old Army blankets from the Third Reich and distribute them to the people. ;)
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke