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1857-00-00

1857-00-00: (The United States Claims the Island of Navassa Under the Guano Islands Act, Seizing Haitian Territory Without Consultation or Compensation, a Mi…

Haitian

1857-00-00: (The United States Claims the Island of Navassa Under the Guano Islands Act, Seizing Haitian Territory Without Consultation or Compensation, a Minor Theft That Demonstrated the Larger Pattern of Great Power Contempt for Haitian Sovereignty): In 1857, the United States claimed the uninhabited island of Navassa, located in the Caribbean between Haiti and Jamaica, under the provisions of the Guano Islands Act of 1856. The act authorized U.S. citizens to claim uninhabited islands containing guano deposits on behalf of the United States. Navassa was geographically part of Haiti, but the United States neither consulted nor compensated the Haitian government for the seizure. Soulouque, whose military was consumed by failed invasions of the Dominican Republic, lacked the power to contest the claim. The seizure of Navassa was a minor territorial loss, but it illustrated the fundamental condition of Haitian sovereignty in the nineteenth century: a Black republic whose independence the great powers had either refused to recognize, punished with indemnity, or simply ignored when it was convenient to take what they wanted.