French Guiana

OUR VISIT TO DEVILS ISLAND

In France before 1832, prisoners were held in the hulls of boats that were kept in the harbors, as they were chained together like slaves. In 1840, prison reform moved prisoners to agricultural farms as forced laborers. Eventually French society did not want them in France, even as “slaves”, and decided to ship them off to French Guiana (a French overseas departments in the Americas) and their Islands. After they served out their sentence, the French law stated they were required to stay in French Guiana for a time equal to their original sentence (unless their sentence was more than 8 years, then they had to stay there for life). France did not want their prisoners to come back.

Devils’ Island was a French penal colony, that operated from 1852 - 1952, as one of the three Salvation Islands of French Guiana. IIe Royale was where the general population was kept, Saint-Joseph was for solitary confinement in silence and darkness and Devil’s Island for political prisoners. It was notorious for the staff's harsh treatment of detainees and the tropical climate and diseases that contributed to high mortality that reached 75%.

The vast majority of the more than 80,000 prisoners sent to the Devil's Island prison system never returned to France. Many died due to harsh conditions, sanitation, mosquitoes, disease, treatment, or prisoner violence. Escape? In 1858, 13 escaped and made it to Britain, in 1901 Duval escaped and fled to New York and wrote a book, in 1936 four escaped to St. Thomas and of course, Henri Charriere - the author of Papillion. Lastly, Rene Belbenoit wrote 2 books in Panama but was the only one that decided to return to France to argue for his freedom. Since it was a crime for Devil's Island inmates to re-enter France, he was arrested again and returned - a year in solitary - eventually made his way to the USA and became a US citizen in 1956.

Finally, in 1938, France stopped sending prisoners and in 1953, the facility was closed. In 1990's, Devil's Island becomes a tourist destination but the cable car between Royale Island and Devil's Island deteriorated and had collapsed so on our visit, we stayed on Royale Island.

There have been many books, movies and articles about Devils Island. Before we arrived here, we studied up on the history of the French justice system, the penal colonies of French Guiana, and some of the more infamous stories, in particular the true stories of The Dreyfus Affair and Papillon (see next postings). We also watched the original 1973 Papillon movie starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, which tells the story of two men’s lives and attempted escapes from Devils Island. We recommend seeing the original movie!Read more