   #copyright

Navassa Island

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: North American Geography

   Navassa Island map from The World Factbook
   Enlarge
   Navassa Island map from The World Factbook

   Navassa Island (French: La Navase, Haitian Kreyòl: Lanavaz or Lavash)
   is a small, uninhabited island in the Caribbean Sea. The government of
   the United States claims the island as an unorganized unincorporated
   territory, part of the United States Minor Outlying Islands, where it
   is administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. However, the
   island is also claimed by Haiti.

Geography and Topography

   Navassa Island is about two square miles (5.2 km²). It is found at a
   strategic location 160 km (90 nautical miles) south of the U.S. naval
   base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, about one-fourth of the way from Haiti to
   Jamaica in the Jamaica Channel. 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 latitude and longitude is 18°24′0″N, 75°0′30″W.
   Navassa Island is south of Cuba, east of Jamaica, and west of Haiti.
   This map originates with the US government and shows the US claim on
   the island
   Enlarge
   Navassa Island is south of Cuba, east of Jamaica, and west of Haiti.
   This map originates with the US government and shows the US claim on
   the island
   Navassa Island - NASA NLT Landsat 7 (visible color) satellite image
   Enlarge
   Navassa Island - NASA NLT Landsat 7 (visible colour) satellite image

   The terrain of Navassa Island consists mostly of exposed coral and
   limestone, the island being ringed by vertical white cliffs nine to 15
   meters high, but with enough grassland to support goat herds. There are
   also dense stands of fig-like trees and scattered cactus on the island.
   Its topography and ecology is similar to that of Mona Island, a small
   limestone island located in the Mona Channel, between Puerto Rico and
   the Dominican Republic. Historically, it shares the same similarities
   as Navassa 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 guano; economic activity consists of
   subsistence fishing and commercial trawling activities.

History

   In 1504, Christopher Columbus, stranded on Jamaica, sent some crew
   members by canoe to Hispaniola 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.

   It was claimed in 1857 by Peter Duncan, an American sea captain, the
   third island to be claimed under the Guano Islands Act of 1856 because
   of its guano deposits. These deposits were actively mined from 1865 to
   1898. Haiti protested the annexation and claimed the island, but the
   U.S. rejected the claim and since October 1857 it is claimed by U.S. as
   unincorporated territory.

   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 Navassa Phosphate
   Company of Baltimore. After an interruption for the U.S. Civil War, the
   Company built larger mining facilities on Navassa with barrack housing
   for 140 black contract laborers from Maryland, houses for white
   supervisors, a blacksmith shop, warehouses, and a church. 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
   sacked and lowered onto boats for transfer to the Company barque, the
   S.S. Romance. The living quarters at Lulu Bay were called Lulu Town, as
   appears on old maps. Railway tracks eventually extended inland.
   Navassa Island.
   Enlarge
   Navassa Island.

   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 1889. 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
   fraternal society, the Order of Galilean Fisherman, 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 Jones v. United
   States, 137 U.S. 202 (1890) went to the U.S. Supreme Court in October
   1890, 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 Benjamin
   Harrison, however, who commuted the sentences to imprisonment.

   Guano mining resumed on Navassa but at a much reduced level. The
   Spanish-American War of 1898 forced the Phosphate Company to evacuate
   the island and file for bankruptcy, and the new owners abandoned the
   place to the booby birds after 1901.
   Navassa Island Light. The light keeper's quarters appear in the
   background.
   Enlarge
   Navassa Island Light. The light keeper's quarters appear in the
   background.

   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 Windward Passage 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 1917, 395 feet (120 m) above sea level. A keeper
   and two assistants were assigned to live there until the U.S.
   Lighthouse Service installed an automatic beacon in 1929. After
   absorbing the Lighthouse Service in 1939, the U.S. Coast Guard serviced
   the light twice each year. The U.S. Navy set up an observation post for
   the duration of World War II. The island has not been inhabited since
   then.

   A scientific expedition from Harvard University studied the land and
   marine life of the island in 1930. Since World War II, amateur radio
   operators have landed frequently to broadcast from the territory, which
   is accorded "country" status by the American Radio Relay League.
   Fishermen, mainly from Haiti, fish the waters around Navassa.

   From 1903 to 1917 it was a dependency of U.S. Guantanamo Bay Naval
   Base, and from 1917 to 1996 it was under U.S. Coast Guard
   administration. Since 16 January 1996, it has been administered by U.S.
   Department of Interior. On August 29, 1996, the U.S. Coast Guard
   dismantled the light on Navassa. An inter-agency task force headed by
   the U.S. Department of State transferred the island to the U.S.
   Department of the Interior. By Secretary's Order No. 3205 of January
   16, 1997, the Interior Department assumed control of the island and
   placed the island under its Office of Insular Affairs. A 1998
   scientific expedition led by the Centre for Marine Conservation in
   Washington D.C. 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.
   Aerial photo showing the steep rocky coast that rings the island.
   Enlarge
   Aerial photo showing the steep rocky coast that rings the island.

   By Secretary's Order No. 3210 of December 3, 1999, the U.S. Fish and
   Wildlife Service assumed administrative responsibility for Navassa,
   which became a National Wildlife Refuge Overlay, also known as Navassa
   Island National Wildlife Refuge. The Office of Insular Affairs 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 Boqueron, Puerto Rico in order to enter its territorial
   waters or land. Since this change of status amateur radio operators
   have repeatedly been denied entry. Since, under the callsign 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 ecology would be carefully respected.

On the Haiti-US Dispute

     * Fabio Spadi (2001) "Navassa: Legal Nightmares in a Biological
       Heaven?" Boundary & Security Bulletin, autumn edition

     * Henry Jones, Plff. in Err., v. United States

   Countries in the Caribbean

   Independent nations
   Commonwealth Realms: Antigua and Barbuda • Bahamas • Barbados • Grenada
   • Jamaica • Saint Kitts and Nevis • Saint Lucia • Saint Vincent and the
   Grenadines
   Commonwealth republics: Dominica • Trinidad and Tobago
   Other republics: Cuba • Dominican Republic & Haiti (both on Hispaniola)
     __________________________________________________________________

   Dependencies
   British: Anguilla ∙ British Virgin Islands ∙ Cayman Islands ∙
   Montserrat ∙ Turks and Caicos Islands • Dutch: Aruba & Netherlands
   Antilles •
   French: Guadeloupe & Martinique • U.S.: Navassa Island ∙ Puerto Rico ∙
   U.S. Virgin Islands

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      Insular areas American Samoa | Guam | Northern Mariana Islands |
                        Puerto Rico | Virgin Islands
   Minor outlying islands Baker Island | Howland Island | Jarvis Island |
       Johnston Atoll | Kingman Reef | Midway Atoll | Navassa Island |
                         Palmyra Atoll | Wake Island

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navassa_Island"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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