Penal Colony - Elsewhere

Elsewhere

• During the Argentine rule of the Falkland Islands, Major Esteban Mestivier was commissioned by the Buenos Aires government, as the new governor of the islands, to set up a penal colony. He arrived at his destination on November 15, 1832; but his soldiers mutinied and killed him. Lt. Col. José María Pinedo quelled the rebellion and took charge as governor. Argentina's southermost city, Ushuaia, was founded as a penal colony.

• France sent criminals to tropical penal colonies including Louisiana in the early 18th century. Devil's Island in French Guiana, 1852–1939, received forgers and other criminals. New Caledonia and its Isle of Pines in Melanesia (in the South Sea) received dissidents like the Communards, Kabyles rebels as well as convicted criminals.

• In Ecuador, the Island of San Cristóbal (in the Galapagos archipelago) was used as a penal colony 1869–1904.

• Imperial Russia used Siberia as a penal colony for criminals and dissidents. Though geographically contiguous with heartland Russia, Siberia provided both remoteness and a harsh climate. In 1857, a penal colony was established on the island of Sakhalin. The Gulag and its tsarist predecessor, the katorga system, provided slave-type penal labor to develop forestry, logging and mining industries, construction enterprises, as well as highways and railroads across Siberia.

• In Paraguay the first ruler and supreme dictator Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia opened the penal colony of Tevego in 1813, where mostly petty criminals were sent. It was abandoned in 1823, but re-established in 1843 as San Salvador. It was evacuated near to the end of the Paraguayan War and soon after destroyed by Brazilian troops.

• The Netherlands had a penal colony since the late 19th century. A town called Veenhuizen, originally set up by a private company to "re-educate" vagrants from the large cities in the west like Amsterdam, was taken over by the Department of Justice to be turned into a collection of prison buildings. The town is located in the least populated province of Drenthe in the north of the country, isolated in the middle of a vast area of peat and marshland.

• Currently in Mexico, the island of Isla María Madre (in the Marías Islands) is used as a penal colony. With a small population (fewer than 1200), the colony is governed by a state official who is both the governor of the islands and chief judge. The military command is independent of the government and is exercised by an officer of the Mexican Navy. The other islands are uninhabited.

• Portugal had a prison on the island of Fernando de Noronha from 1938 to 1945. Tarrafal was a Portuguese penal colony in the Cape Verde Islands, set up by the head of the Portuguese government, Salazar, before WWII (1936) where anti-fascist opponents of this right-wing regime were sent. At least 32 Anarchists, Communists and other opponents of Salazar's regime died in that camp. The camp was closed in 1954 but was re-opened in the 1970s to jail African leaders fighting Portuguese colonialism.

• Taiwan had a penal colony at Green Island during Chiang Kai Shek's White Terror. Plans have been put forward for tourist development.

• Con Dao Island in Vietnam was used as a penal colony by both the French colonists and the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

• Gorgona Island in Colombia housed a state high security prison from the 1950s. Convicts were dissuaded from escaping by the poisonous snakes in the interior of the island and the sharks patrolling the 30 km to the mainland. The penal colony was closed in 1984 and the last prisoners were transferred to the mainland. Most of the former jail buildings are now covered by dense vegetation, but some remain visible.

• The Guantanamo Bay detention camp has been used by the United States as a penal colony to maintain and interrogate prisoners purportedly outside US legal jurisdiction.