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Fueling Empires: The Guano Trade and the Chincha Islands

Tyler Matsunaga

The online exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution Museum of American History dedicated to the guano trade, particularly that of the Chincha Islands off the coast of Peru, is an excellent exhibit that highlights the value that guano had in the nineteenth century. The exhibit itself uses images, maps, and byproducts of the guano trade to present the material, in addition to utilizing a plethora of subheadings to convey more information about the commodity of guano. This exhibit highlights the fact that the commodity itself was a mostly nonrenewable resource, only having value for close to a century, as, by then end of the 1870s, almost the entire supply of guano in the Chincha Islands had been harvested. The guano harvesting process also decimated the seabird population that produced it, as the heavy machinery and men took over the guano islands, thereby preventing seabirds from returning, making further production was nearly nonexistent. Another aspect of the trade that the exhibit covers is the movement of guano and the resources that were required to excavate it from the heaps of guano on the islands. Beginning with the production of guano from the cormorants that fed on fish to create the nitrate-rich guano, the exhibit shows that the conditions of the environment were essential to preserving its value due to the dry weather and cool ocean that allowed it to dry and harden.

​Once humans discovered the islands, laborers, mainly indigenous South Americans and Hawaiians before being replaced by indentured Chinese, were required to extract the solidified guano as miners before transporting the product to ships at the edge of the island for transportation. Finally, the exhibit also spends a significant portion of its space covering the final products that the guano was transformed into. Not only was the guano used as a fertilizer due to its high nitrate content, where guano harvested from the Chincha Islands was identified as the most superior fertilizer in the world, but it was also sold as a medicine used to soothe

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200 foot-high piles of guano, with laborers standing on the mound

headaches and itching, among other ailments, when it was sold in America and Europe.

 

Having built up undisturbed for centuries, the guano islands were massive heaps of seabird excrement, crystalized by the cool and dry climate, that required significant resources to extract. The extraction process began with miners, indentured laborers from South America, Hawaii, and China, who pickaxed the solidified droppings from the mound, after which they loaded it onto carts on rails. These carts moved from the mound towards the steep cliffs of the islands, where other laborers loaded the guano from the carts to wheelbarrows, dumping the contents down chutes. Because the cliffs were so steep, however, large ships were not able to get close enough to be loaded directly, so these chutes dropped down into small craft known as lighters. From there, these lighters would return to the large carrier ships and loading crews would transport the guano into the larger craft to be taken back to foreign countries to be sold.

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Rail cars transporting guano to the edge of the cliffs

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Chutes used to load the small ships; from there guano was transported to larger ships for export

 

On the consumption side of the guano trade, ships harvesting guano traveled out of South America, primarily to the United States, Germany, France, and England. At the time, both Europe and the United States were experiencing population growth, while continued replanting of the same fields stripped the soil of its nutrients, thereby lowering food production capabilities. Around 1804[1], when explorers discovered the ways indigenous South Americans utilized guano as a fertilizer, the guano trade began to take off, especially as chemists researched it and discovered it was primarily nitrogen and phosphate, nutrients crucial to plant growth. Due to its properties as a fertilizer, European and American farmers began requesting increased quantities of guano, as applying it to their fields “could yield three times the normal growth”[2].

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One aspect of the exhibit that I found particularly interesting was the idea that the guano trade was one of the first forays that the U.S. had in annexing foreign territories. According to the exhibit, the Guano Islands Act of 1856 gave explorers the unfettered right to claim and extract guano out of any unclaimed or unoccupied islands, backed by the power of the American Navy, in exchange for supplying the U.S. with the final product. This particular aspect of the exhibit was so captivating because the implications that the Guano Islands Act had regarding claims to foreign territories has ultimately defined the actions that the U.S. has taken in the past to acquire resources and other commodities. American imperialism across the globe is something that defines the global legacy of the United States, as the occupation and exploitation of other nations represents a great deal of American foreign policy in the past. Because of this, America’s legacy is shown to stem from the passage of the Guano Islands Act and the subsequent usage of naval force to lay claim to overseas lands that were resource rich.

 

[1] Giaimo, Cara. “When The Western World Ran on Guano.” Atlas Obscura, 00:00 400AD. http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-the-western-world-ran-on-guano.

[2] Johnston, Paul F. “The Smithsonian and the 19th Century Guano Trade: This Poop Is Crap.” National Museum of American History, May 25, 2017. https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/smithsonian-and-guano.

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