DEVIL'S ISLAND
- ABANDONED -
G'day folks,
Here is an abandoned colonial French prison, notorious for its hellish conditions.
There have been many names given to the notorious island prison colony
in French Guiana to describe the brutal living conditions of the
prisoners who were sent there: the man eater, the dry guillotine, or as
it is best known, Île du Diable, the Devil’s Island.
The island chain was discovered by French settlers between 1763 and
1765 during the expedition of Kourou, the goal of which was to spread
the power and influence of the French colonial empire. It was a huge
disaster, as more than 60 percent of the settlers died of fever or
hunger. In 1797, the French government gradually transformed Guiana into
a penal colony, establishing labor camps inspired by the English model
in Australia.
There were two goals: emptying the French jails of the worst criminals
and building up a workforce to inhabit and develop the struggling
colony.
Originally established for exiled political prisoners, by 1891 it was
the toughest convicts who were sent to what became known as Devil’s
Island. Usually, a prisoner was sent to the “dry guillotine” if he had
tried several times to escape, or after several attempted or successful
murders. The island of Saint Joseph became the most feared place of
detention of the colony. The prisoners in these cells knew the chance of
escape was close to nonexistent: The strong current surrounding the
island, hungry sharks, the day and night surveillance were some of the
insurmountable obstacles. What’s more, the chances of surviving within
the prison weren’t much better.
Prisoners had to follow very strict rules. Detained in dark cells,
they were rigorously forbidden to talk, smoke, read, or even sit before
nightfall. They were locked up alone in a tiny cell whose ceiling was a
grid so that guards could keep a close eye from a raised footbridge
above, where they patrolled in slippers to catch them prisoners by
surprise). Convicts were expected to maintain complete silence; talking
to a guard often ended up in a punishment. Amid dreadful living
conditions, one out three inmates died there from diseases inherent to
the area, as well as other causes such as hunger and violence.
These terrible living conditions were eventually exposed to the
general public, and the imprisonment system ended in 1938. The penal
colony at Sant Joseph island was not closed until after World War II,
however, finally shuttering in 1946. There were some attempts to occupy
the island after that: a summer camp, a police station, a plant oil
factory, and even a shark fishing factory. But all these initiatives
failed. The island were finally abandoned and the buildings overtaken by
nature. Some of the colonial structures on the island have since been
restored, and opened to visitors to explore its dark history.
Clancy's comment: Obviously, it's been a mean and awful place, but other than that, it looks like a beautiful place.
I'm ...
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