Sealand News

One of the great things about the internet is how it gives us a chance to look up the kind of information from the comfort of our home that would usually require a trip to the library to sift through micro-film.

News agencies are gradually digitising more of their archives, revealing articles stretching back decades. This is a goldmine for anyone following Sealand, because with the Principality being established in 1967 there are many years of news reports to sift through.

You can now go online and very quickly find articles about Sealand stretching back to the 70s that are available instantly, online, without any trips to a library or newspaper archive. It’s thanks to the all-encompassing reach of Google, which not only indexes web pages for searches, but also operates ‘Google News’, an aggregator that catalogues and links news articles and allows you to search through years of articles.

Even if you’ve never used Google News before it’s really easy. Head over to http://news.google.co.uk and enter a search term into the box. Looking for just ‘Sealand’ brings up too many matches that have nothing to do with Sealand itself, so try ‘Principality Sealand’ (the search ignores words like ‘of’). Unless there have been any stories on Sealand in the last few weeks this may well come up with zero results, but look to the left side of the page and you’ll see the ‘Archives’ heading.

The archives allow you to search by year. For the best results choose ‘Other Dates’ then enter a date range. You’ll discover news articles from the 1970s. The only drawback is that the older news reports require payment before you can see them, though it is usually just a small amount.

Don’t forget to make use of standard search tricks to help narrow down a particular article. Put words in quote marks to find that exact phrase (for example: “principality of sealand”) or use the plus symbol to isolate results that include both words (like “principality of sealand” + “roy bates”). In a similar manner you can also use the minus symbol to exclude a word from the results.

Did you know that the brother of American writer Ernest Hemingway created a micro-nation in 1964, three years before Sealand was founded?

Leicester Hemingway was like his brother in many ways, a writer, traveller and lover of the great outdoors, Leicester authored six books and many articles in addition to working as a newspaper reporter and boat builder. In 1953 he wrote ‘The Sound of the Trumpet’, based on his personal experience in Germany and France during World War 2, but his most famous novel is the biography ‘My Brother, Ernest Hemingway’ published in 1961.

Three years after its publication, and Ernest’s death by suicide, Leicester Hemingway travelled to a position eight miles southwest of Jamaica in international waters, secured an 8×30 foot bamboo raft to a Ford engine block and announced the creation of the ‘Republic of New Atlantis’.

Using an obscure law called the Guano Islands Act, Hemingway claimed half the island on behalf of the U.S. government, leaving the remaining half for New Atlantis. The Guano act was created in 1856 when guano (bird poo!) was used as a commercial fertilizer. Unoccupied islands covered in bird waste were in high demand and so the U.S. allowed its citizens to lay claim to any territory containing guano deposits for the good of their country.

Hemingway used this strange and little-known law to declare New Atlantis an island nation, and was voted in as president by every one of the micro-nations seven voters. His aim was to use New Atlantis as the headquarters for his own International Marine Research Society, with which he planned to further marine research, and also protect Jamaican fishing.

Although never officially recognised by any state, Jamaica didn’t seem to object to the man-made island floating just off its shores - in 1964 a spokesman for the Jamaican embassy in Washington said Leicester Hemingway was a “decent, well meaning soul”.

Like Sealand, New Atlantis had its own currency (dubbed ‘Scruples’), constitution and stamps. Leicester was a particular fan of stamps and many were created celebrating the lives of famous figures like Sir Winston Churchill and U.S. president Lyndon Johnson. He sent one of the stamps to President Johnson and received an official thank-you note in return, allegedly addressed to him as president of New Atlantis, possibly the closest anyone has come to official recognition of a micro-nation.

Sadly New Atlantis wasn’t able to withstand Mother Nature, and just a few short years after it was created the island was destroyed by a hurricane. Leicester Hemingway lived until 1982, but faced with the prospect of losing both his legs to diabetes he committed suicide at the age of 67.

Interestingly, the ‘Guano Act’ has never been repealed, meaning that American citizens could theoretically use it to create their very own micro-nations, just like Sealand!