Devil's Island French Guiana 12/23/23
Devil's Island, French Guina
Welcome to Hell, at least that’s what
Devil’s Island was for a hundred years.
Authored by Laurie Hardcastle Seil.
First thing to know is that there are
three islands here, not just one, and all three were part of the French penal
colony called “Bagne de Cayenne” in French Guiana, as well as a town on the
mainland called St. Laurent-du-Maroni, Maroni is the river it was located on.
St. Laurent is important to note as it was the first place that the ships that
carried prisoners from France would stop to offload and process the inmates.
Most of the men, and all of the few women sent to French Guiana, would stay at
this location to work at a logging camp. The incorrigibles and political
prisoners were the ones sent out to the islands. As France was trying to
populate this colony the policy was that once the prisoners had served their
sentence they were then required to stay in French Guiana for the same number
of years as their sentence before they could return to their native land. For
example, if a man were sentenced to serve a nine-year sentence doing hard
labor, once he had served that time, he then had to stay another nine years in
country before he could go home.
The transport of what would eventually
be close to 80,000 prisoners (three quarters of them perished while incarcerated) to French Guiana over the years began in 1852 when
Napoleon III wanted to get rid of political enemies who had opposed his coup
d’état the previous year. Along with political prisoners there were murderers,
anarchists, thugs, rapists, the occasional innocent man, and thieves, whose
crimes could range from stealing money or jewels to a loaf of bread. Sending
prisoners here became a way France rid itself of an undesirable slice of
society.
Devil’s Island itself was often the
place political prisoners were sent, the most famous being Alfred Dreyfus, who
was accused of being a spy for Germany, found guilty of treason and sentenced
to serve his time in French Guiana beginning in 1895. After several years of
appeals and pressure on the French government, he was pardoned, then later
acquitted after he returned to France. He owed his release mostly to his wife
who never gave up her efforts to prove his innocence. Saint Joseph Island was
where prisoners were sent for solitary confinement, the worst spot there being
“the black hole” where the only time there was any light was when food was
handed in. If you were on this island, you were absolutely forbidden to speak, a
torture in and of itself.
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