French Guiana / Guyane Française - History
Guyana was inhabited 5,000 years before the modern era by several Amerindian peoples, notably the Arawaks, the Palikurs then the Caribbean. The Guyanese coast was followed by Christopher Columbus on his third trip in 1498.
During the 16th century, several European attempts failed to establish a sustainable colony. In 1555 a colony of Calvinists founded a settlement there, which was soon dispersed. In 1604 the French first settled at Cayenne and the territory was baptized France equinoctial. But in the years following various French companies attempted colonization, without success. The diseases and the wars against the Amerindians decimated the successive expeditions.
Up to 1635, several trading companies, under Royal auspices, successively failed in their respective attempts at colonisation. It is from this latter epoch that the first French establishment at Cayenne dates. It was not more successful than its predecessors; still the attempt was renewed in 1643 and 1652, and finally abandoned in 1653.
From 1654 the Dutch held the land, but twenty years later the colony passed under the control of the crown of France, and slow growth and progress followed. Up to 1672, when Cayenne definitively fell to the share of France, the Dutch disputed its possession. With a view to still further growth in 1763, 12,000 emigrants were sent to French Guiana from France. The expedition was mismanaged, however, and within two years only a handful of the colonists were still alive, and they were starving and fever-stricken. Further attempts at colonization also ended disastrously.
The territory is so hostile that the French Revolution installed the first prison in the vicinity of Cayenne. In 1809 the colony was captured by British and Portuguese forces, but was restored to France in 1814, after Napoleon's downfall.
The wholesale deportation to Cayenne of those whose opposition might interfere with the free exercise of the absolute power which the President of the Republic has assumed, has suggested to the French Government the idea of renewing the project, often formed and as often abandoned, of colonising Guiana. Doubtless Louis Napoleon might have found a more favorable field for his colonisation scheme, but this is not his only mistake.
In accordance with an imperial decree of 1854, Guiana was made the principal seat of the penal settlements of the mother-country - commonly known as Devil's Island [Île Du Diable]. Off the coast of French Guiana is a small island with just 34-acres. Prison facilities were located on the French Guiana mainland as well, but the inmates who were thought to be most dangerous were all housed on the island.
Once feared as the worst place on Earth, the French Guiana prison colony was made famous by Papillon. Transporting to a pestilential climate men whose chief crime was that of being vanquished, they were maintained at Cayenne at the national charge. All persons sentenced to eight years’ hard labor were condemned, on the expiration of their sentence, to reside for the remainder of their lives in the colony, unless when they were specially pardoned, in which case they were seldom allowed to return to France.
Grants of lands, with the restitution of civil rights, might be accorded by the local authorities as a recompense for good conduct; but the discipline was in all cases severe, and the labor heavy and continuous. The convicts comprised up to 15% of the local population in the 19th century.
Tens of thousands of convicts were sent to Guiana’s notorious jails, among them Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish artillery officer who was wrongly accused of treason at a time of heightened anti-Semitism. It was not until 1946 that the last prison closed definitively and the prisoners were repatriated to the mainland. Slavery was abolished by the decrees of 27 April 1848 impelled by Victor Schoelcher and was only proclaimed on 10 June in Guyana, when he arrived from Paris by boat.
The first discovery of gold in French Guiana was made on the Orataye river in 1852, and later on the Oropu, Cirube and other rivers. In 1873 the famous placers of the Sinnamary system were opened. Saint Elie, Dieu Merci, Adieu-Vat and Couriége alone produced about $10,000,000. The placers of the Mana system (Enfin, PasTrop-Tot, Elysee) date from 1878, their production being about $5,000,000. The date of the discovery of the Ama placers on the Maroni and its tributaries along the Dutch Guiana boundary was 1888. In 1893 the famous Carservene discovery was made in the territory in dispute between France and Brazil, and in six years about $18,000,000 were produced from this region.
Apart from the production of the small quartz ledge of Adieu-Vat, all of the gold won in French Guiana had been taken from the creek beds mostly by the old sluicing system. This method gave a fair remuneration without a large outlay of capital. By around 1910, however, the grade of the stream gravel had been gradually diminishing until it has become impossible to pay the high wages that formerly prevailed, and were unable to prevent unlicensed miners from working the ground of the companies, without entailing large expense for expelling them.
The difficulties of dredging for Gold in Guiana arose mainly from the climatic conditions. All along the rivers there is a tropical forest with its enormous trees that must be felled and burned over before the dredge can operate. The felling of the trees was, however, rather an easy matter as the roots spread over the surface of the ground so that the fall of one tree carried several of its companions along with it. On the other hand, the burning of these hard woods when they were green is a diflicult matter. The quantities of dead wood, tree trunks and branches entangled together in the gravel and payable clay dirt were another hindrance to dredging operations in this region. It was necessary to use powerful dredges, manned by skilful winchmen in order to overcome these difficulties.
Guyana became a colony with a general council elected in 1878 and had been represented since 1879 without discontinuity in the Parliament. The French colony was administered by a Gouverneur (Governor) appointed by the home government. The Governor, in addition to being the chief executive and administrative official, exercisesa wide influence in shaping the legislation of the Colony. He is assisted by, and administers the affairs of the Colony through, a Conseil Prive (Privy Council) consisting of the Secretaire-General (Government Secretary), Chef du Service Administratif (Director of Interior), Chef du Service Judiciare (Director of the Judiciary), and Directeur du Administration Penitentiare (Director of Penitentiaries) as official members, and three non-official members appointed by the Governor.
The lawmaking body of the Colony was the Conseil General (General Council or Legislative Assembly) of sixteen members, seven of whom represented Cayenne; all were elected by the Colonial voters. French Guiana was divided into fourteen communes, each administered by a Maire (Mayor); in all excepting Cayenne the Governor controlled the election of the more important officials. The Colony was represented in the French Parliament by one Depute (Deputy).
In 1946, like Martinique, Guadeloupe and Réunion, Guyana became an overseas department. President Charles de Gaulle would make a trip to the remote outpost, where he proclaimed a new era of French engagement with its former colony. “Having invested great hopes in Guiana, France has (…) drifted away somewhat. That period is over,” said the World War II hero. A month later, de Gaulle gave birth to the Guiana Space Centre, destined to become “Europe’s spaceport”.
Guyana was chosen in 1964 to host the new French space center because of its proximity to the equator. The rockets thus benefit from the dynamics of the rotation of the Earth to gain in speed. In 2008, Guyanese refused to change the status of autonomous territory to 68.9% and in 2010 they chose to merge the region and the department into a single territorial unit.
Henry Charriere, the only convict to escape Devil’s Island, wrote his life story in the best selling book Papillion, and was present during filming the movie. Also remaining are few of the tiger-cage type cells of the once feared isolation compound. This cell housed Captain Alfred Dreyfus, who was falsely accused for treason/espionage and sentenced to life in prison.
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