U S Insular Areas PDF Download

The larger insular areas have come under the sovereignty of the United States in various ways. Puerto Rico and Guam were ceded to the United States by treaty at the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898. The Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917. Following the renunciation by Great Britain and Germany of their claims to what is now American Samoa and the cession by the Samoan chiefs to the United States of these islands, the Congress, in 1929, ratified the instruments ceding the islands to the United States. The United States was responsible for administering the Northern Mariana Islands after World War II under a United Nations trusteeship agreement. Ultimately, a covenant between the United States and the Northern Marianas established the islands as a commonwealth under the sovereignty of the United States. At present, general federal administrative responsibility for the CNMI, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa is vested in the Department of the Interior.