Navassa Island

Navassa Island (: La Navase, : Lanavaz or Lavash) is a small, uninhabited  in the, and is an  of the , which administers it through the. The island is also claimed by.

Geography and Topography
Navassa Island is about two square miles (5.2 km²). It is found at a strategic location 160 km (90 s) south of the U.S. naval base at, , about one-quarter of the way from Haiti to in the. It reaches an elevation of 77 m at an unnamed peak 100 m south of the lighthouse, Navassa Island Light. This location is 400 m from the southwestern coast or 600 m east of Lulu Bay. The island's and  is.

The of Navassa Island consists mostly of exposed  and, the island being ringed by vertical white cliffs nine to 15 meters high, but with enough  to support  herds. There are also dense stands of -like trees and scattered on the island. Its topography and ecology is similar to that of, a small limestone island located in the , between and the. It shares the same historical similarities as Mona Island since both are U.S. territories, were once centers of guano mining, and presently are nature reserves. Transient Haitian fishermen and others camp on the island but the island is otherwise uninhabited. It has no ports or harbors, only offshore anchorages, and its only natural resource is ; economic activity consists of subsistence fishing and commercial trawling activities.

History
In, , stranded on , sent some crew members by canoe to for help. They ran into the island on the way, but it had no water. They called it Navaza (from "nava-" meaning plain, or field), and it was avoided by mariners for the next 350 years.

Despite an earlier claim by Haiti, Navassa Island was claimed for the United States in 1857 by, an American sea captain, the third island to be claimed under the of , because of the island's  deposits. These deposits were actively mined from 1865 to. protested the annexation, but the U.S. rejected the Haitian claim and since October 1857 has claimed the island as an (according to the .)

Guano phosphate was a superior organic fertilizer that became a mainstay of American agriculture in the mid-19th century. Duncan transferred his discoverer's rights to his employer, an American guano trader in Jamaica, who sold them to the just-formed of. After an interruption for the, the Company built larger mining facilities on Navassa with barrack housing for 140 black contract laborers from , houses for white supervisors, a blacksmith shop, warehouses, and a church. Mining began in. 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 sacked and lowered onto boats for transfer to the Company, the. The living quarters at Lulu Bay were called Lulu Town, as appears on old maps. Railway tracks eventually extended inland.

Hauling guano by muscle-power in the fierce tropical heat, combined with general disgruntlement with conditions on the island eventually provoked a rebellion on the island in. Five supervisors died in the fighting. A U.S. warship returned eighteen of the workers to Baltimore for three separate trials on murder charges. A black, the , raised money to defend the miners in federal court, and the defense rested its case on the contention that the men acted in self-defense or in the heat of passion and that in any case the United States did not have proper jurisdiction over the island. The cases, including , went to the  in October, which ruled the Guano Act constitutional, and three of the miners were scheduled for execution in the spring of 1891. A grass-roots petition drive by black churches around the country, also signed by white jurors from the three trials, reached President, however, who commuted the sentences to imprisonment.

Guano mining resumed on Navassa but at a much reduced level. The of 1898 forced the Phosphate Company to evacuate the island and file for bankruptcy, and the new owners abandoned the place to the  after. Navassa became significant again with the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914. Shipping between the American eastern seaboard and the Canal goes through the between Cuba and Haiti. Navassa, which had always been a hazard to navigation, needed a lighthouse. The U.S. Lighthouse Service built Navassa Island Light, a 162 foot (46 m) tower on the island in, 395 feet (120 m) above sea level. A keeper and two assistants were assigned to live there until the installed an automatic beacon in. After absorbing the Lighthouse Service in, the U.S. Coast Guard serviced the light twice each year. The U.S. Navy set up an observation post for the duration of. The island has not been inhabited since then.

A scientific expedition from Harvard University studied the land and marine life of the island in. Since, amateur radio operators have landed frequently to operate from the territory, which is accorded "country" status by the. Fishermen, mainly from Haiti, fish the waters around Navassa.

From 1903 to 1917, Navassa was a dependency of the U.S., and from 1917 to 1996 it was under administration. Since 16 January 1996, it has been administered by U.S. Department of the Interior. On, , the dismantled the light on Navassa. An inter-agency task force headed by the transferred the island to the. By Secretary's Order No. 3205 of, , the Interior Department assumed control of the island and placed the island under its Office of Insular Affairs. For statistical purposes, Navassa was grouped with the now-obsolete term and is now grouped with other islands claimed under the Guano Islands Act islands as the.

A 1998 scientific expedition led by the in  described Navassa as "a unique preserve of Caribbean biodiversity." The island's land and offshore ecosystems have survived the twentieth century virtually untouched. The island will be studied by annual scientific expeditions for the next decade at least.



By Secretary's Order No. 3210 of, , the assumed administrative responsibility for Navassa, which became a  Overlay, also known as. The retains authority for the island's political affairs and judicial authority is exercised directly by the nearest U.S. Circuit Court. Access to Navassa is hazardous and visitors need permission from the Fish and Wildlife Office in, in order to enter its territorial waters or land. Since this change of status, operators have repeatedly been denied entry. Since, under the KP1, this is a particularly rare "entity," attempts are being made to have Congress allow entry. It is understood that, should permission be received, the island's ecological integrity would be carefully respected.

Sources and External links

 * STATE OF NAVAZA
 * Navassa Island profile -
 * A photographic tour of Navassa Island -
 * Navassa Island World Factbook entry -
 * The King of Navassa Island
 * Navassa Island Coral Reefs
 * U.S Fish & Wildlife Service: Navassa National Wildlife Reguge

US-Haiti Territorial Dispute

 * Fabio Spadi, Navassa: Legal Nightmares in a Biological Heaven, IBRU Boundary & Security Bulletin, 2001