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Thread: Did the U.S. steal an island covered in bird poop from Haiti? A fortune is in dispute

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    Post Did the U.S. steal an island covered in bird poop from Haiti? A fortune is in dispute

    Did the U.S. steal an island covered in bird poop from Haiti? A fortune is in dispute - For more than 160 years, the United States and Haiti have disputed the ownership of tiny Navassa Island. .


    IMFPG6WKZII6TODGIBWI6S7HAY.jpg
    For more than 160 years, the United States and Haiti have disputed
    the ownership of tiny Navassa Island at the southwest entrance of the
    Windward Passage covered with what was once worth a king’s ransom. More
    than a century later, the question remains: Who owns the poop?


    When the eccentric rapper Kanye West made headlines last month claiming the president of Haiti had gifted him an island to which a Texan had already laid development claims, it was not the only island off Haiti’s coast in dispute. For more than 160 years, the United States and Haiti have disputed the ownership of tiny Navassa Island at the southwest entrance of the Windward Passage covered with what was once worth a king’s ransom. More than a century later, the question remains: Who owns the poop?

    Known as La Navase in French, the pear-shaped island is located about 35 miles west of Haiti’s southern peninsula, 85 miles northeast of Jamaica and 95 miles south of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Covered in bird poop and managed as a national wildlife refuge by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, it is claimed by Haiti and included in the very constitution that President Jovenel Moise is currently trying to rewrite.

    “The United States has no valid claim over Navassa Island,” said Fritz Longchamp, a former Haiti foreign minister who in 1998 had to deal with the U.S.’s revived claims to the deserted outpost while serving in then-Haitian president Rene Preval first cabinet. “All they have,” Longchamp said about the U.S. government, which has claimed the rocky coral island since 1857 and in 1999 established a wildlife refuge there, “is a congressional act, called the Guano Act and it only has jurisdiction over the United States; nobody else.”

    The Guano Islands Act of 1856 allowed adventure-seeking Americans to claim any abandoned or unclaimed islands with guano — the highly valuable 19th-century compost that comes from the excrement of seabirds and bats — on behalf of themselves and the United States.

    Read the rest of the poop here: https://www.tampabay.com/news/2020/1...is-in-dispute/
    Any time you give a man something he doesn't earn, you cheapen him. Our kids earn what they get, and that includes respect. -- Woody Hayes​

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    The Guano Islands

    Bird Turds and the Beginnings of U.S. Overseas Territories


    The Guano Islands Act marked the beginning of insular, unincorporated territories of the United States. According to the U.S. Office of Insular Affairs, an insular territory is “a jurisdiction that is neither a part of one of the several States nor a Federal district.” 8 Thus far, territory acquired by the United States as part of westward expansion was intended for eventual statehood. The guano islands were not meant to be populated by Americans or entered into the union of the United States. The explicit purpose of holding the islands was to mine guano, an increasingly valuable resource for the United States.


    Baker Island was the first island to become a part of the United States under the Guano Islands Act. Although it was first discovered by whalers in 1818, the U.S. took possession of it in 1857.



    NAVASSA ISLAND & ISSUES WITH ANNEXATION
    The acquisition of territory through the Guano Islands Act seemed relatively straightforward. However, this was the first time the United States attempted to annex overseas territories.


    Regardless of Haiti’s claim, Duncan and Cooper claimed it for the United States under the Guano Islands Act. 9 President James Buchanan approved the annexation.


    Haiti had not, however, given up its right to the island. In November or 1858, Mr. B.C. Clark, the commercial agent of Haiti in Boston, wrote that since the Haitian government “never ceded, sold, or leased either of these dependencies [including Navassa] to any nation, company, or individual,” the island remained a Haitian possession. The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State replied that the annexation of Navassa by the United States was lawful since “the island was derelict and abandoned, with guano of good quality.”



    The question of jurisdiction was never entirely resolved. But, the matter did not hold much importance for the U.S. government so long as the Navassa Phosphate Company could continue mining.
    The issue of jurisdiction became paramount when Henry Jones murdered Thomas N. Foster in 1889.


    In 1890, the United States Supreme Court found that “the Island of Navassa must be considered as appertaining to the United States; that the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Maryland had jurisdiction to try this indictment, and that there is no error in the proceedings.”....snip~


    The Guano Islands - US History Scene




    Due to Haiti's claim of the island of Navassa (which is also supported by Cuba), and subsequently occupied by the United States, the maritime boundaries of Cuba-Haiti-Jamaica are delimited and its meeting points effectively remain in abeyance....snip~


    Navassa Island - Wikipedia


    History does not long Entrust the care of Freedom, to the Weak or Timid!!!!! Dwight D. Eisenhower ~

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