Birth and establishment of the institution of misfortune
The beginnings. Towards the end of the 18th century, the first convicts were sent to the most insalubrious places in French Guiana. The loss of human life was enormous, so deportation continued to be practiced, but was far from systematic. It wasn't until May 1854, under the impetus of Napoleon III, that a law on Transportation - i.e. the transportation of convicts sentenced to forced labor to lands that were often sparsely populated and inhospitable - was passed. A few years later, in 1858, the French authorities officially inaugurated the Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni detention center, the Camp de la Transportation, marking the beginning of a veritable colonization of the region. The same year saw the installation of all the prison administration services (offices, hotels for senior staff, houses for junior staff and guards, and a twelve-building hospital). In short, the entire penitentiary administration took on a new dimension and became more organized. Saint-Laurent became an agricultural penitentiary, and the labor force of the prisoners was used to make up for the lack of local labor.
A vehicle for colonization. The project to colonize the territory and develop the economy of French Guiana in the manner of the English in Australia finally came to fruition. The Saint-Laurent region set an example, and some of Guyana's banana and sugarcane concessions came to be operated by convicts. Several logging sites were opened, and little by little, the number of penal colonies built on the Saint-Laurent model multiplied. Convicts arriving from mainland France were unloaded at Saint-Laurent, then given a medical examination before being distributed to the various centers in French Guiana (around 30 in all). There were two types of prisoner: the "transportés" were sentenced to hard labor (from 8 years to life imprisonment) for common crimes, while the "déportés" were political opponents, like Dreyfus, locked up onDevil's Island for treason. Later, from 1885, the category of "relégués" was added, generally consisting of repeat offenders who had committed minor offenses. It should be pointed out that as early as 1852, the first convicts to set foot on the îles du Salut and in French Guiana in general came of their own free will, preferring to serve their sentences in the tropics rather than in a metropolitan penitentiary. The French authorities sent people in their hundreds, without really planning how to accommodate them on site. The situation soon deteriorated. In 1863, following several appalling yellow fever epidemics and a catastrophic health situation, deportation to French Guiana and its islands was halted. Napoleon III chose New Caledonia. For twenty years, Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni would receive no more Europeans.
Bythe end of the 19th century, France's attitude towards outlaws was becoming increasingly harsh. According to the bourgeoisie, all-powerful at the time, the national territory could no longer support the presence of criminals, bandits or even ordinary delinquents. The principle of deportation and forced labor was therefore revived and applied more widely, even for minor offenses: "relegation" was voted in, openly targeting repeat offenders. As this rule still didn't seem to be enough, "doubling up" was introduced, whereby convicts who had been sentenced to a maximum of 8 years' imprisonment and had been released were kept in French Guiana for the same length of time as they had been in prison, so that they could work there, but this time freely, on their own account. The principle is terribly perverse, as very few ex-convicts are able to find a job that pays a normal wage, as almost the entire economy is linked to the prison system. Destitute and left to their own devices, most of those released slip back into illegality and regain their status as prisoners.
Daily life in the prison world
Corruption and social inequality were the foundations of social organization in Guyana's penitentiary system. To put it simply, money was the solution to almost every problem. In particular, it enabled them to receive a privileged assignment that was less arduous than working in the forest. To keep their money throughout the journey from France, convicts used the famous "plan". Inserted through the anus, this small hollow metal tube was used to hide banknotes inside the body, in the intestines of their owner. While the stash was safe, it demanded iron health, and deaths from intestinal infections were not uncommon. It has to be said that diseases did not spare convicts: the most widespread and terrible of all was undoubtedly malaria. Quinine was rarely administered, but only in the most serious cases, and often too late. Prisoners and guards alike endured the devastating effects of malaria fever. The weakest or youngest convicts were quickly taken to task by the stronger, more hardened others, and had to rely solely on their own courage and cunning to get out of trouble, as the guards were extremely lax in their supervision. In the end, the convicts' only occupation was work. Here too, the nature of their treatment was particularly uneven. While some managed, for a fee, to secure a quasi-administrative position in Cayenne, others, less fortunate or less wealthy, were sent to the forests of French Guiana to chop wood.
The punishments reserved for the most unruly of prisoners were varied and varied, administered in particularly insalubrious conditions. A highly refined treatment based on malaria, deprivation and abuse quickly put an end to the revolutionary aspirations of the toughest prisoners. Caning, for example: the number of strokes was set by decree in Paris. The whippers, who were also convicts, had no difficulty in making the torments even more terrible, depending on the mood of the guards. The convict Maynard writes of the whip Ambarrek: "When he struck the convicts tied to the fatal bench, he would rise on tiptoe so that the whip would fall from higher up, and suddenly curling up like a wild beast, he would lower the knotted whip and pull it horizontally. This Arab was the only corrector who tore off shreds of scarlet flesh with his seven-strap whip. His face twitched, his eyes sparkled. He showed all his teeth. He was dreadful. The arrival of Jules Grévy as President of the Republic put an end to corporal punishment in the early 1880s. The guillotine, however, continued to play its fatal role in the camps.
The deterrent threat of prison
At the beginning of the last century, France was already aware that its initial ambitions to use the penal colony as an effective means of developing French Guiana were pure utopia: the economic results of convict labor were meager compared to the sacrifices made by these men. Apart from a few successes, such as farming in Kourou, or the brick industry throughout the territory (with which a few houses in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni were built), it was a debacle. Nevertheless, the Salvation Islands remained a powerful symbol of French justice. The sentencing of certain individuals to Guiana's penal colony following high-profile trials served as an example. For a time, the fear of the cursed land from which one rarely returns was a matter of French public order. Indeed, the Guiana penal colony owes its notoriety to a number of inmates who made the headlines during or after their incarceration. It wasn't until the 1920s and 1930s, and in particular the denunciations of journalist and writer Albert Londres, that the idea of closing the bagne was raised. This was achieved in 1938, thanks to the deputy Gaston Monnerville, but the complete repatriation of the convicts would take another fifteen years.
Alfred Dreyfus, whose military degradation and arbitrary incarceration following a mock trial for treason caused a deep rift in French society against a backdrop of anti-Semitism, is undoubtedly the most famous prisoner of the Guiana penal colony. A captain, a polytechnician and a Jew of Alsatian origin, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1894. He was incarcerated on Devil's Island the following year, in the greatest secrecy. He was finally cleared and released in 1906.
Guillaume Seznec was sentenced to hard labor for life in 1924 for the murder of Finistère general councillor Pierre Quéméneur. He began his sentence at Camp de la Transportation in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in 1927, before being transferred the following year to the bagne on the Isles of Salut. After the Second World War, his sentence was postponed and he returned to France in 1947. He died in 1954 from injuries sustained in a traffic accident. His trial was the subject of numerous revisions, with no change in verdict to this day, but Guillaume Seznec and those close to him never ceased to proclaim his innocence. In 2015, the unpublished testimony of one of the Seznec couple's children was published. The latter reportedly saw his mother defending herself against the advances of the Finistère politician, before seeing the latter lying on the floor. Guillaume Seznec may then have covered up for his wife.
Henri Charrière, known as "Papillon", was sentenced in 1931 to hard labor for life for the murder of one of his friends. According to his account, he escaped forty-three days after his arrival on the Isles of Salvation. Recaptured shortly afterwards, he made several attempts on his life, the last of which, in 1941, proved successful, as he was never recaptured. Cleared after the war for his heroic behavior during the conflict, in 1969 he wrote an account of his adventures, which became a bestseller and was adapted for the cinema. The veracity of this account has been sharply criticized: "Papillon's" escape is without doubt the most legendary and unsubstantiated anecdote of the period. It's true that he tried to get away, but only during a stay in a forest camp near today's airport, and certainly not from the islands. Henri Charrière probably made Fontan and Simone's escape his own. For the latter, the attempt ended dramatically, as he was sucked to his death by the silt that covered the shore!
