History of French Guiana - 1800s and The Penal Era

1800s and The Penal Era

In 1809 an Anglo-Portuguese naval squadron took French Guiana (ousting governor Victor Hugues) and gave it to the Portuguese in Brazil. However 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.

In 1848 France abolished slavery and the ex-slaves fled into the rainforest setting up communities similar to the ones they had been stolen from in Africa. Now called Maroons, they formed a sort of buffer zone between the Europeans who settled along the coast and main rivers, and the unconquered, and often hostile, Native American tribes of the inland regions. Without the availability of slave labour the plantations were soon taken over by the jungle, and the planters ruined.

In 1850 several shiploads of Indians, Malays and Chinese were brought out to work the plantations but, instead, they set up shops in Cayenne and other settlements.

In 1852 the first shiploads of chained convicts arrived from France. In 1885, to get rid of habitual criminals and to increase the number of colonists, the French Parliament passed a law that anyone, male or female, who had more than three sentences for theft of more than three months each, would be sent to French Guiana as a "relégué." These relégués were to be kept in prison there for six months but then freed to become settlers in the colony. However, this experiment was a dismal failure. The prisoners were unable to make a living off the land and so were forced to revert again to crime, or to eke out a hand-to-mouth existence until they died. In fact, being sent to French Guiana as a relégué was a life sentence, and usually a short life sentence, as most of the relégués died very quickly from disease and malnutrition. The prisoners would arrive at St Laurent du Maroni before being transported to various camps throughout the country. The Iles du Salut were used to house political prisoners and for solitary confinement. The islands became notorious for the brutality of life there, centering around the notorious Devil's Island. Famous political figures to be sent to the islands included Alfred Dreyfus and Henri Charrière, who managed to escape. He later wrote a best-selling book about his experiences called Papillon.

In 1853, gold was discovered in the interior, precipitating border disputes with Brazil and Suriname (these were later settled in 1891, 1899 and 1915, though a small region of the border with Suriname is still disputed). Indeed the Republic of Independent Guyana, in French La République de la Guyane indépendante and commonly referred to by the name of the capital "Counani", was created in the area which was disputed by France (as part of French Guyana) and Brazil in the late nineteenth century.