In 1856 the USA passed a remarkable law which said it could take control of over 70 islands, reefs and atolls in the Pacific, Atlantic and Caribbean Oceans. By 1900 this number had risen to over 100.
This bold, one sided law leaped into life because of Britain’s monopoly of bird pooh, or guano.
Under the law any "guano islands discovered by citizens and not belonging to other countries may be considered as appertaining to the United States."
The list of islands claimed under the Act included the Caribbean islands of Navassa, and Swan; as well as the smaller Quitasueno, Rosalind, Serrana and Serranilla Banks. In the Atlantic, it covered Fox and Constable Islands; Pacific islands included Baker, Birnie, Caroline, Christmas, Guano, Bowditch, Flint, Fanufuti, Worth, Jarvis, Canton, Makin, Independence, Rakahanga, Sydney, McKean, Marcus, Gardner, Sophia, Nukufeta, Penrhyn, Rakahanga, Phoenix, Starbuck, Swains, Fanning, Washington and Staver Islands; Carondelet, Kingman and Winslow Reefs; Johnston, Midway and Palmyra Atolls.
The Act also said the US military could be used to protect the islands. Some of the islands are now military bases. From 1958 till 1962 the US used Johnston Atoll for nuclear tests.
So why was the US so interested in bird pooh?
In 1804 the German naturalist Baron Alexander von Humboldt returned from a five year exploration of South America. Worshipped and venerated by Charles Darwin (author of The Origin of Species), Humboldt brought back with him fathomless notes on the South American climate, people and ocean currents. (1) and (2)
He also filled his ship with 60,000 plants and piles and piles of rocks. Amongst these rocks were some which revolutionized agriculture and motivated the USA’s first expansion into areas outside of continental America.
The man who brought guano to Europe and Charles Darwin's hero:German explorer Baron Alexander von Humboldt by Friedrich Weitsch, 1806.
The Atacama is the driest place on earth. Hundreds of years can pass before it receives any rain.
Lying in the ocean next to this moonscape are the Chincha Islands. At the time of Humboldt’s exploration they were covered with light grey rocky outcrops and cliffs. Embedded into the bottom layers of the cliffs were dark ochre rocks. These brown rocks were truly prehistoric.
The local Indian people told Humboldt, bird pooh (guano) had produced these cliffs and outcrops. Furthermore the rocks, they said, were miraculous as they caused lush crops to grow on the barren Atacama desert soil.
.The complete lack of rain meant none of this pooh had been dissolved by water. It had been slowly accumulating over millions of years. Perhaps more than 60 million years.
Humboldt marvelled at the height of the cliffs and the depth of the miraculous bird pooh: “ Each island is 5 to 6 miles in circumference, and consists of granite covered with guano in some places to a height of 200 feet, in successive horizontal strata…No earthy matter whatever is mixed with this vast amount of excrement.” (3)
When Humboldt returned to Europe the guano was studied and tested on farms. The results were remarkable. News of its potential for farming reached Britain, the most powerful commercial shipping country.
The Scottish chemist, Andrew Ure described guano as an exceptional natural fertilizer. “This is a point established beyond all question by nearly every agriculturist in the kingdom; and recorded by all classes of writers on agricultural subjects.” (4)
But what made guano even more desirable was the huge supply of it on the Chincha Islands. British farmers would no longer have to rely on cow, chook, sheep and horse manure.
What’s more because the Chincha guano contained very little water it was much more concentrated. This meant farmers needed only small amounts as fertiliser.
British traders set sail for Peru to negotiate an agreement for the mining of guano. Peru was faced with severe debts and agreed to do business with the British. Thus Britain had gained control of guano. Mining began and the guano was dug up using imported Chinese and cheap local labor.
Shipments at first were small. In 1841 Britain imported 1,733 tons of guano. By 1851 this had soared to 219,764 tons. The price also leaped. In 1841 it was just over one pound per ton by 1851 it was nearly 15 pounds. (5)
The most prominent British guano trader was William Gibbs, of Antony Gibbs and Co. Gibbs used his guano profits to build an immense neo-Gothic stately home in Somerset England and to assist build the Keble College chapel at Oxford University.
While Gibbs was using bird pooh to build a place of worship and his own stately pleasure dome, in the English country side, resentment and panic in the US was growing.
By 1850 about 30 percent of the US fertilizer market was guano. A guano rush had taken hold of Europe and the US. Demand for the pooh in the US could not be met by supplies. The US had managed to gain a few small supplies direct from Peru. But it was largely at the mercy of British merchants, who demanded high prices.
The US decided something had to done to secure their own guano supplies.
US traders knew guano could be found on some islands in the Pacific, Caribbean and Atlantic. The problem was none of these islands had similar vast deposits to that found on Chincha. Nor was the quality as good. Rain fell on many of these islands and this dissolved the guano and reduced its quality.
The US was undeterred. To counter the lack of quantity and quality the government passed a law allowing it to take over any uninhabited (and in many cases submerged) islands, atolls, reefs or banks which it thought might have guano. This was the Guano Islands Act of 1856. (6)
But by the 1870s this bold piece of legislation had become largely pointless for the purpose of guano fertilizer. This was because chemistry was producing artificial fertilizers which used waste from steel-making, gas plants or the remains of ancient decayed sea shells.
Nonetheless the Act remained and with it US claims to islands named under the Act. What's more every so often the US would dig up the Act and claim another island, atoll or reef. (This sometimes caused major problems with a number of countries including Canada, Japan, Kiribati and Honduras who clearly thought some islands and the like belonged to them.)
While the US has now abandoned a large number of Guano Island territories, it still controls a significant number . The remaining islands are a focus of political lobbying by US organizations such as State Department Watch. This organization wishes the US to retain control of the islands for oil, fish and other resources.
(1) Charles Darwin letter to his friend the botanist Joseph Hooker ( J.D. Hooker) August 6,1881
(2) Charles Darwin letter to J.D. Hooker February 23, 1844
(3) Ure's Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines containing A Clear Exposition of Their Principles and Practice (Vol 2) Robert Hunt, Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, London, 1860 (p 413 -419)
(4) and (5) Rural Cyclopedia (or a General Dictionary of Agriculture and of the Arts, Sciences, Instruments, and Practice, Necessary to the Farmer, Stockfarmer, Landsteward, Farrier &c.) (Vol. 2) Rev. John M Wilson, Fullarton and Co., Edinburgh, 1851 (p 547-558)
(6) The Guano Islands Act 1856 (U.S. Code, Title 48, Chapter 8, Sections 1411-1419)
http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
http://www.yellowpigs.net/virginislands/us_territories
http://www.statedepartmentwatch.org/GuanoActIslands70.htm