French Guiana - History

History

French Guiana was originally inhabited by a number of indigenous people. The French tried to create a colony there in the 18th century in conjunction with its settlement of some Caribbean islands.

Bill Marshall wrote

"The first French effort to colonize Guiana, in 1763, failed utterly when tropical diseases and climate killed all but 2,000 of the initial 12,000 settlers ... During its existence, France transported approximately 56,000 prisoners to Devil's Island . Fewer than 10 percent survived their sentence."

Its infamous Île du Diable (Devil's Island) was the site of a small prison facility, part of a larger penal system by the same name, which consisted of prisons on three islands and three larger prisons on the mainland, which was operated from 1852 to 1953. In addition, in the late nineteenth century, France began requiring forced residencies by prisoners who survived their hard labor.

In 1809, a Portuguese-British naval squadron took French Guiana for the Portuguese Empire. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1814, the region was handed back to the French, though a Portuguese presence remained until 1817.

A border dispute with Brazil arose in the late 19th century over a vast area of jungle, leading to the short-lived pro-French independent state of Counani in the disputed territory and some fighting between settlers. The dispute was resolved largely in favour of Brazil by the arbitration of the Swiss government.

The territory of Inini, consisting of most of the interior of French Guiana, was created in 1930. It was abolished in 1946, when French Guiana as a whole became an overseas department of France. After France withdrew from Vietnam, during the 1970s, it helped to resettle Hmong refugees from Laos in French Guiana.

In 1964 French president Charles de Gaulle decided to construct a space-travel base in French Guiana. It was intended to replace the Sahara base in Algeria and stimulate economic growth in French Guiana. The department was considered particularly suitable for the purpose because it is near the equator and has extensive access to the ocean as a buffer zone. The Guiana Space Centre, located a short distance along the coast from Kourou, has grown considerably since the initial launches of the "Véronique" rockets. It is now part of the European space industry and has had commercial success with such launches as the Ariane 4 and Ariane 5.