Abstract

"Reconsidering the 1856 Guano Islands Act: How State-Enabled Entrepreneurs Regularized the Fertilizer Business on Navassa Island "

Dennis Halpin, Virginia Tech (dphalpin@vt.edu)

My paper examines the ways in which entrepreneurs changed the structure of the Caribbean guano trade following the passage of the 1856 Guano Islands Act. This legislation allowed US citizens to claim uninhabited islands that contained guano deposits. Using government documents, letters, court cases, and newspaper accounts, I closely analyze Navassa Island, located roughly thirty miles west of the Haitian coast. In 1857, Baltimorean businessmen put the new law to the test when they stole Navassa from Haiti. The men who claimed Navassa eventually helped form the Navassa Phosphate Company that governed and mined the island until 1898.

Historians who have examined the Guano Islands Act have analyzed the ways that it paved the way for US imperialism. In these studies, Navassa plays a significant part as the largest source of phosphates in the nineteenth century Caribbean. However, the roles that the Navassa Phosphate Company played in structuring business and labor in the Caribbean guano trade have not been adequately explored. The Guano Islands Act enabled entrepreneurs to establish a permanent settlement on Navassa and call upon the assistance of the US navy to defend their claims. The men who stole the island also used the legislation to consolidate control of labor. In making these changes, they made what was a risky and uncertain business before 1857 much more predictable. The company set up Navassa to run like a forced labor plantation, using a small number of white officers to control a large Black workforce. By establishing a landed labor force—significantly larger than previous guano mining operations—importers no longer had to recruit and pay for their own workers. Instead, importers relied on the Navassa Phosphate Company to manage the mining to regularize what was once a speculative, risky endeavor.