Editing Navassa Island (section)

===1504 to 1901===
In 1504, [[Christopher Columbus]], stranded on [[Jamaica]] during his fourth voyage, sent some crew members by canoe to Hispaniola for help. En route, they landed on the island, which had no water. They called it Navaza (from {{langnf|es|nava-,|term1=plain|term2=field|paren=none}}), and mariners largely avoided it for the next 350 years. In 1798, [[Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry]], a member of the [[French Parliament]] best known for his publications on [[Saint-Domingue]], referred to "la Navasse" as a "small island between Saint-Domingue and Jamaica".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qbhIAAAAcAAJ |title=Description topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partie française de l'isle Saint-Domingue |trans-title=Topographical, physical, civil, political and historical description of the French part of the island of Saint-Domingue |last=Moreau de Saint Mery |first=Mederic Louis Elie |author-link=Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry |volume=2nd |pages=741–742 |year=1798 |access-date=5 May 2020 |language=fr |via=Google Books |quote=On prétend qu'on a pu gravir assez haut sur la Hotte pour découvrir dans un jour très-serein, la Navasse, petite île entre Saint-Domingue & la Jamaïque, & placée a environ 22 lieues dans l'Ouest du Cap Tiburon, qui lui-même est à envion douze lieues de la Hotte.}} {{in lang|fr}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Dubois|first=Laurent|title=Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution|year=2004|publisher=The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|pages=10}}</ref>

From 1801 to 1867, the successive constitutions of Haiti claimed sovereignty over adjacent islands, both named and unnamed, although Navassa was not specifically enumerated until 1874.<ref name="windows on haiti navassa">{{cite web|url=http://windowsonhaiti.com/windowsonhaiti/navassa.shtml|title=Windows on Haiti: Navassa Island|website=windowsonhaiti.com|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141102213349/http://windowsonhaiti.com/windowsonhaiti/navassa.shtml|archive-date=November 2, 2014|df=mdy-all|access-date=February 12, 2015}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=December 2022}} Navassa Island was claimed for the United States on September 19, 1857, by Peter Duncan, an American sea captain, under the [[Guano Islands Act]] of 1856, for the rich [[guano]] deposits found on the island and for not being within the lawful jurisdiction of any other government, nor occupied by another government's citizens.<ref name="U.S. Government Printing Office">{{cite web |title=GAO/OGC-98-5 - U.S. Insular Areas: Application of the U.S. Constitution |date=November 7, 1997 |url=http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GAOREPORTS-OGC-98-5/content-detail.html |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |access-date=March 23, 2013 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130927192012/http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GAOREPORTS-OGC-98-5/content-detail.html |archive-date=September 27, 2013 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>

Haiti protested the annexation, but on July 7, 1858, U.S. President [[James Buchanan]] issued an Executive Order supporting the American claim, calling for military action to enforce it. Navassa Island has since been maintained by the United States as an [[unincorporated territory]] (according to the [[Insular Cases]]). The [[United States Supreme Court]] on November 24, 1890, in ''[[Jones v. United States (1890)|Jones v. United States]]'', {{ussc|137|202|1890}}, Id. at 224, found that Navassa Island must be considered as appertaining to the United States, creating a legal history for the island under U.S. law, unlike many other islands initially claimed under the Guano Islands Act. Haiti's 1987 constitution maintains its claim to the island,<ref>[https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/did-the-us-steal-an-island-covered-in-bird-poop-from-haiti-a-fortune-is-in-dispute/ar-BB1bojka Did the US steal an island covered in bird poop from Haiti? A fortune is in dispute], (By Jacqueline Charles), November 26, 2020, Miami Herald</ref> which is considered part of the [[Departments of Haiti|department]] of [[Grand'Anse (department)|Grand'Anse]].<ref>{{cite archive|item=Dosye Lanavaz|language=ht|item-id=RL10059RR0774|date=September 14, 1998|collection=Radio Haiti Archive|institution=Duke University|item-url=https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4zc7wt6m|access-date=November 9, 2021}}</ref>

==== Guano mining and the Navassa Island Rebellion of 1889 ====
[[File:Navassa Island c 1870.png|thumb|An unsigned painting of Navassa Island {{circa|1870}} showing the brig ''Romance'', company buildings at Lulu Town near the shore, and guano mining activity up the hillside.]]
[[Guano]] phosphate is a superior organic fertilizer that became a mainstay of American agriculture in the mid-19th century. In November 1857, Duncan transferred his discoverer's rights to his employer, an American guano trader in Jamaica, who sold them to the newly formed Navassa Phosphate Company of [[Baltimore, Maryland|Baltimore]].<ref>{{cite journal|title=Guano Islands for Sale|last=Fanning|first=Leonard M.|journal=Maryland Historical Magazine|volume=52|issue=4|date=1957|page=347|url=https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5800/sc5881/000001/000000/000208/pdf/msa_sc_5881_1_208.pdf|access-date=October 29, 2021}}</ref> After an interruption for the [[American Civil War]], the company built larger mining facilities on Navassa with barrack housing for 140 [[African Americans|black]] contract laborers from [[Maryland]], houses for white supervisors, a blacksmith shop, warehouses, and a church.<ref name="poop">{{cite web|author=Brennen Jensen|date=March 21, 2001|title=Poop Dreams|access-date=November 16, 2012|work=Baltimore City Paper|url=http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/misctopic/navassa/poop.htm|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121025151226/http://www2.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/misctopic/navassa/poop.htm|archive-date=October 25, 2012|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

Mining began in 1865. The workers dug out the guano by [[dynamite]] and pick-axe and hauled it in rail cars to the landing point at Lulu Bay, where it was put into sacks and lowered onto boats for transfer to the Company [[barque]], the S.S. ''Romance''. The living quarters at Lulu Bay were referred to as '[[Lulu Town]]', as appears on old maps. Railway tracks eventually extended inland.<ref name="Hyles">{{cite book |last1=Hyles |first1=Joshua |title=Inter-American Relations: Past, Present, and Future Trends |date=23 June 2017 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=978-1-4438-7390-1 |pages=155–158 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y1wpDwAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref> In September 1875, the fierce [[1875 Indianola hurricane]] swept over the island, destroying much of the company's infrastructure, including the rail line and workers' homes. In total, the storm caused an estimated $25,000 ({{Inflation|US|25000|1875|fmt=eq|r=-4}}) in damage on the island.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1875-10-19 |title=Island of Navassa: A Terrible Hurricane and Its Results |work=The Daily Picayune |location=New Orleans, Louisiana |pages=2 |volume=XXXIX |issue=267}}</ref>

Hauling guano by muscle power in the fierce tropical heat, combined with general disgruntlement with conditions on the island, eventually contributed to a riot in 1889, in which five supervisors died. A U.S. warship returned 18 of the workers to Baltimore for three separate trials on murder charges. A black fraternal society, the [[Order of Galilean Fishermen]], raised money to defend the miners in federal court. The defense tried to build a case on the contention that the men acted in self-defense or the heat of passion and even claimed that the United States did not have jurisdiction over the island.<ref name="Hyles"/><ref name="SOTUNI">{{Cite book |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5030/5030-h/5030-h.htm |title=State of the Union Addresses of Benjamin Harrison |access-date=March 29, 2015 |archive-date=February 10, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180210141938/http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5030/pg5030.txt |url-status=live |last=Harrison |first=Benjamin |author-link=Benjamin Harrison |via=Project Gutenberg}}</ref> [[Everett J. Waring|E. J. Waring]], the first black lawyer called to the Maryland [[bar (law)|bar]], was a part of the defense's legal team. The cases, including ''Jones v. United States'', went to the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] in October 1890, which ruled the Guano Act constitutional. Three of the miners were scheduled for [[Capital punishment by the United States federal government|execution]] in the spring of 1891. A grass-roots petition driven by black churches around the country, also signed by white jurors from the three trials, reached President [[Benjamin Harrison]], who mentioned the case in the [[1891 State of the Union Address]]. Among other things, he said:

{{blockquote|''"There appeared on the trial and otherwise came to me such evidences of the bad treatment of the men that in consideration of this and of the fact that the men had no access to any public officer or tribunal for protection or the redress of their wrongs I commuted the death sentences that had been passed by the court upon three of them."''}}

Guano mining resumed on Navassa at a much-reduced level.

In 1898, during the [[Spanish–American War]], the Phosphate Company had to abandon its operations on Navassa due to its proximity to Spanish Cuba and Puerto Rico. Company president John H. Fowler noted that the war made it impossible to find ships to deliver supplies to the island and expected his workers to be evacuated by June. Maryland senator [[Arthur Pue Gorman]] called for a naval warship to escort supply ships to the island to help evacuate workers.<ref>{{cite news |title=Aid for Navassa Island |date=1898-05-06 |work=[[The New York Times]] |volume=XLVII |issue=15076 |page=1 |url=https://nyti.ms/3GMceIL |via=Times Machine}}</ref> In July 1898, abrogating an agreement with Haitian Naval Admiral [[Hammerton Killick]] that would have allowed the Phosphate Company to withdraw equipment and supplies left on Navassa, a group of Haitians occupied the island and seized the company's assets. They were unable to operate the machinery, and mining ceased.<ref>{{citation |title=Haitians Seize Navassa |date=1898-07-06 |work=[[The New York Times]] |volume=XLVII |issue=15128 |page=2 |url=https://nyti.ms/3u1KVT4 |via=Times Machine}}</ref> The Navassa Phosphate Company went bankrupt and the island was sold at auction in the United States in September 1900.<ref>{{cite news |title=Island Sold at Auction |date=1900-09-22 |work=[[The New York Times]] |volume=L |issue=15821 |page=1 |url=https://nyti.ms/3OFZPIi |via=Times Machine}}</ref> A dispute over the sale hampered efforts to restart mining on the island and left four contract workers virtually abandoned on Navassa from December 1900 to May 1901.<ref>{{cite news |title=To Be Rescued from Navassa Island |date=1901-05-31 |work=[[The New York Times]] |volume=L |issue=16036 |page=1 |url=https://nyti.ms/3VajJxt |via=Times Machine}}</ref> Between 1857 and 1898, approximately {{convert|1|e6lbs|kg}} of phosphate deposits were removed from the island.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Miller |first1=Margaret W. |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6847-8_10 |title=Coral Reefs of the USA |last2=Halley |first2=Robert B. |last3=Gleason |first3=Arthur C. R. |date=2008 |publisher=Springer Netherlands |isbn=978-1-4020-6847-8 |editor1-last=Riegl |editor1-first=Bernhard M. |location=Dordrecht, Netherlands |page=408 |language=en |chapter=Reef Geology and Biology of Navassa Island |doi=10.1007/978-1-4020-6847-8_10 |editor2-last=Dodge |editor2-first=Richard E.}}</ref>