The penal colony of Cayenne (), commonly known as Devil's Island (Île du Diable), was a French penal colony that operated for 100 years, from 1852 to 1952, and officially closed in 1953, in the Salvation Islands of French Guiana.

Opened in 1852, the Devil's Island system received convicts from the Prison of St-Laurent-du-Maroni, who had been deported from all parts of the Second French Empire. It was notorious both for the staff's harsh treatment of prisoners and the tropical climate and diseases that contributed to high mortality, with a death rate of 75 percent at its worst.

Organization

The prison system encompassed several locations, both on the mainland and in the off-shore Salvation Islands. Île Royale was the reception centre for the general population of the penal colony; they were housed in moderate freedom due to the difficulty of escape from the island. Saint-Joseph Island was the Reclusion, where inmates were sent to be punished by solitary confinement in silence and darkness, for attempted escapes or offences committed in the penal colony. Devil's Island was for political prisoners. In the 19th century, the most famous such prisoner was Captain Alfred Dreyfus.

In addition to the prisons on each of the three islands in the Salvation Islands group, the French constructed three related prison facilities on the South American mainland: just across the straits at Kourou, east in Cayenne (which later became the capital of French Guiana), and St. Laurent, to the west.

History

Early penal system

thumb|A French prison hulk in [[Toulon harbour, 1850]]

During the 16th and 17th centuries, prisoners convicted of felonies in the Kingdom of France were sentenced to serve as galley slaves in the French Navy's Levant Fleet. Given their harsh conditions, this was virtually a death sentence. Following the decommissioning of all galleys of the Levant Fleet in 1666, the French government kept the majority of prisoners chained in pairs onboard galley hulks permanently moored in various harbours until they rotted and sank. Once a hulk sank, its prisoners, who relied on charity or their families for food, bedding and clothing, were transferred to live on adjacent pontoons. They were required to work 12 hours a day in the docks, earning up to 10–15 centimes, which they could spend on food and drink. Other prisoners were housed in prisons onshore, but conditions were reportedly so bad that many prisoners would beg to be transferred to the hulks.

By the early 19th century, France's urban population had increased from under six million to over 16 million, and crime kept pace. In 1832, legislation was passed mandating the state's provision of basic necessities to prisoners. Prison reform changed the previous reliance on corporal punishment through hard labor, to imprisonment with a goal of punishment and deterrence. Imprisonment was considered a way to remove offenders from society. Recidivism of up to 75% had become a major problem; released and unemployed prisoners entered cities to seek a way to live.

In the 1840s, the state set up internal agricultural penal colonies as a place to receive prisoners, thereby removing them from urban environments and giving them work. Prisoners were commonly sentenced under doublage by which, on completion of their sentence, they were required to work as employees at the penal colony for an additional period equal to their original sentence.

The French Navy, which had been given the task of managing the prison hulks, complained strongly about the cost of guarding the hulks and the disruption they caused to the work of the shipyards. Following his coup in 1851, Emperor Napoleon III ordered that the hulks be permanently closed and that civil law convicts be transferred overseas to colonies. Debate over where the convicts would be sent was prolonged. Algeria was ruled out by the Navy as it was controlled by the French Army; Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Texas in the United States were considered, but the government eventually chose its own colony of French Guiana.

Since 1604, France had repeatedly failed to colonize French Guiana. The last attempt at colonization was in 1763. Some 75% of the 12,000 colonists who had been sent there died in their first year, often from tropical diseases. By the 1850s, the declining number of survivors were on the brink of extinction. In 1852, Napoleon called for volunteer prisoners from the hulks to transfer to the new Bagne de Cayenne (Cayenne penal colony) at French Guiana; 3,000 convicts applied. Two categories of prisoners were eligible for transportation: transportés, those civil-law prisoners sentenced under doublage, and déportés, prisoners convicted of political crimes, such as espionage or conspiracy. France also continued to use the hulks, housing an average of 5,400 prisoners at a time, until they were finally closed around the end of the 19th century. The agricultural penal colonies continued to be used for juveniles until the last was closed in 1939. On Devil's Island itself, the small prison facility did not usually house more than 12 persons. In 1938, the penal system was strongly criticized in René Belbenoît's book Dry Guillotine.

Shortly after the release of Belbenoît's book, which aroused public outrage about the conditions, the French government announced plans to close the bagne de Cayenne. The outbreak of World War II delayed this operation but, from 1946 until 1953, one by one the prisons were closed. The Devil's Island facility was the last to be closed.

The cable car system that provided access to Devil's Island from Royale Island deteriorated and Devil's Island is now closed to public access. It can be viewed from off shore by use of charter boats. The two larger islands in the Salut island group are open to the public, with some of the old prison buildings restored as museums. They have become tourist destinations.

Fifteen women to camp

Around the middle of the 19th century, an experiment was carried out in which 15 prostitutes were brought to Devil's Island, who were thought to encourage prisoners to live a dignified life and start a family. The women were guarded by nuns. No families were born, but the women offered sexual favors to anyone who could offer them rum. Disputes arose among the men, and eventually a syphilis epidemic raged on the island.

Alleged and successful escapes

Charles DeRudio

After an attempt on 14 January 1858 to assassinate Emperor Napoleon III, Charles DeRudio was sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. He escaped with twelve others, making their way to British Guiana. In later life, he joined the American Army and survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Clément Duval

Clément Duval, an anarchist, was sent to Devil's Island in 1886. Originally sentenced to death, he later received a commuted sentence of hard labour for life. He escaped in April 1901 and fled to New York City, where he remained for the rest of his life. He eventually wrote a book about his imprisonment called Revolte.

François Frean, Paul Renuci, Raymond Vaude, and Giovanni Batistoti

Four escapees from Devil's Island - François Frean, 37, Paul Renuci, 32, Raymond Vaude, 35, all French, and Giovanni Batistoti, 35 - arrived in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands on 18 October 1936. Their native boat was nearly wrecked on the reef and the convicts were initially entertained as guests and treated for injuries at the Municipal Hospital.

Henri Charrière and Sylvain

Henri Charrière's bestselling book Papillon (1969) describes his successful escape from Devil's Island, with a companion, Sylvain. They used two sacks filled with coconuts to act as rafts. According to Charrière, the two men leaped into heavy seas from a cliff and drifted to the mainland over a period of three days. Sylvain died in quicksand a short distance from the shore. From there, Charrière was to meet a man by the name of Cuic-Cuic who would help him continue and complete his escape to freedom; instead Charrière was caught again and served for a time in the Bagne at El Dorado, Venezuela. Once finally freed, he remained in Venezuela.

Charrière's account aroused considerable controversy. French authorities disputed it and released penal colony records that contradicted his account. Charrière had never been imprisoned on Devil's Island. He had escaped from a mainland prison. French journalists or prison authorities disputed other elements of his book and said that he had invented many incidents or appropriated experiences of other prisoners. Critics said he should have admitted his book was fiction. Some chose to stay and resettle in French Guiana.

In 1965, the French government transferred responsibility for most of the islands to its newly-founded Guiana Space Centre under the authority of the National Centre for Space Studies. The islands are under the trajectory of the space rockets launched eastward from the CNES facility toward the sea (to geostationary orbit). They must be evacuated during each launch. The islands host a variety of measurement apparatus for space launches and some buildings classified as historical monuments have been restored.

Since the late 20th century, the islands have become tourist destinations with areas of the former prisons open for tours. With the addition of tourism facilities, the islands receive more than 50,000 tourists each year.

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  • In the 1925 American film The Phantom of the Opera, starring Lon Chaney, the Phantom is said to have escaped Devil's Island.
  • Devil's Island is featured in the plot of The Dain Curse (1928), a novel by Dashiell Hammett, an American mystery writer.
  • Ronald Colman plays a Devil's Island prisoner in the 1929 film Condemned.
  • Danish writer Aage Krarup Nielsen wrote a novel, Helvede hinsides havet (1933) (Hell beyond the Sea), describing life in the prison system.
  • In 1939, Boris Karloff was cast as Dr. Charles Gaudet in the American film Devil's Island.
  • Director Frank Borzage's 1940 film Strange Cargo stars Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Ian Hunter, and Albert Dekker as three convicts and a woman who escape from Devil's Island; they are led by Hunter's character, a possible personification of God. Peter Lorre also stars, playing a bounty hunter pursuing the others.
  • In the American film To Have and Have Not (1944), Paul de Bursac (Walter Surovy) tells Harry Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): "Did you ever hear of Pierre Villemars? .... He's on Devil's Island, they sent me here to get him, to bring him back here to Martinique."
  • The 1944 film Passage to Marseilles, directed by Michael Curtiz, is about five men who escape from Devil's Island to fight for Free France during World War Two.
  • We're No Angels is a 1955 American movie directed by Michael Curtiz which starred Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray, and Peter Ustinov as escapees from Devil's Island.
  • Season 2, episode 8 of The Wild Wild West, "The Night of the Bottomless Pit," (first broadcast on 4 November 1966), takes place on Devil's Island.
  • Season 1, Episode 9 of The Time Tunnel, "Devil's Island," (first broadcast on 11 November 1966), was set on Devil's Island.
  • Henri Charrière's memoir, Papillon (1969), ostensibly described the extreme brutality of the penal colony. He claimed to be an escaped convict but was found never to have visited the island. The book was adapted as an American movie of the same name; released in 1973, it starred Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. A remake of Papillon was released in 2017, starring Charlie Hunnam and Rami Malek.
  • Argentine author Adolfo Bioy Casares's novella Plan de Evasión (A Plan for Escape, 1969), is set on Devil's Island. The novella tells of a French military officer sent to the archipelago and his interactions with the island's governor and staff.
  • In the fifth season of American TV series Frasier, episode 23, "Party, Party", Niles extols Seattle's exclusive Safari Club, saying "These are the people who introduced badminton to Devil's Island!"
  • Alexander Miles's 1988 history of Devil's Island, including an analysis of Charrière's "memoir" based on the records of the penal colony, show that most of the latter account did not happen, were embellishments, or were feats ascribed to others. Although prisoners were not treated well, conditions were not as bad as in Charrière's account.
  • In the 2003 episode "Bend Her" of the animated comedy Futurama, Devil's Island has independently entered the 3004&nbsp;Olympics; its athletes appear to be wearing striped prison uniforms.
  • "Devils Island"<!-- The album omits the apostrophe --> is the title of a song by the band Megadeth on their 1986 album Peace Sells... but Who's Buying? The song expresses the thoughts of a prisoner on Devil's Island about to be executed.
  • Devil's Island has one full episode of Dave Salmoni's Deadly Islands series dedicated to it. Aired on Animal Planet (Discovery Channel Network) in 2015, the episode documents Salmoni's exploration of the island together with talk of its flora and fauna, dangers, and past as host to a network of penitentiaries.
  • The life of Vere St. Leger Goold is the subject of a 2012 Irish theatrical play called Love All. He was a top tennis player in the late 19th century who was convicted of murder and sentenced to Devil's Island. He committed suicide there.
  • Devil's Island is the title of a song by musical group CocoRosie, featured as a hidden track on the 2013 album Tales of a GrassWidow.
  • In Tour de Farce, a short film starring The Inspector, the title character accompanies a prisoner to Devil's Island.
  • William Willis's adventure on Devil's Island was featured in the Season 4 premiere of Drunk History on Comedy Central.
  • Devil's Island is mentioned in the plot of the 2015 science-fiction book Seveneves.
  • Devil's Island and other islands in the prison are mentioned in Irving Wallace's 1972 novel The Word.
  • In Rob Zombie's 2022 film The Munsters, Herman and Lily vacation on the beach at Devil's Island Hotel. Herman wears a prison uniform that says Property of Devil's Island Penal Colony.

See also

  • Charles DeRudio
  • Papillon
  • George John Seaton

References

;Notes

;Further reading

  • Belbenoit, René. 1940. @#!*% on Trial. Translated from the French by Preston Rambo. E. P Dutton & Co. Reprint by Blue Ribbon Books, New York, 1941.
  • Belbenoit, René. 1938. Dry Guillotine: Fifteen Years among the Living Dead. Reprint: Berkley (1975). . Reprint: Bantam Books, 1971.
  • W.E. Allison-Booth. 1931. Hell's Outpost: The True Story of Devil's Island By a Man Who Exiled Himself There. Minton, Balch & Company, 1931.
  • Seaton, George John. Isle of the Damned: Twenty Years in the Penal Colony of French Guinea. Farrar, Straus and Young, 1951. Also published in England as Scars Are My Passport.
  • Charrière, Henry. Papillon. Reprints: Hart-Davis Macgibbon Ltd. 1970. (hbk); Perennial, 2001. (sbk).
  • Godfroy Marion, Bagnards, Tallandier, 2008.
  • Godfroy Marion, Bagnards, édition du chêne, 2002 (Ranked as "Best coffee table book of the year" by Le Monde).
  • CNES, Dossier de presse Îles du Salut
  • Rickards, Colin. The Man From Devil's Island Peter Dawnay Ltd., London, 1968. Hardback
  • Nicol Smith, Black Martinique, Red Guiana, 1942.
  • Willis, William. 1959. Damned and Damned Again: The True Story of the Last Escape from Devil's Island. New York: St. Martin's Press.
  • "Devil's Island French Penal Colony", Salvation Army history