‘Now, Where Was I?’ I didn’t know!

December 26, 2019, Île Royale, French Guiana — When I was a high school student dreaming of the day I would travel abroad, I never dreamt I would travel to French Guiana twice in one year. To tell the truth, I doubt I ever thought about French Guiana at all — my sights were fixed on France and Europe. But on January 10, 2019, this was World Cruise #2’s third port of call (after San Juan and Grenada) and also this Caribbean cruise’s third as we head for the Amazon.

We’d been warned of thunder and lightning all afternoon but were spared meteorological drama, so I trudged around the island again.​

But, which island? Where was I? My Viking bible that describes all my destinations and excursions said we would anchor offshore and tender over to Devil’s Island. You know, Papillon’s island. Today, on the tender, I was informed that we were in fact heading for Île Royale, where the less dangerous prisoners were incarcerated. It’s where I landed last January, but I never saw the sign. So this post is not Devil’s Island Redux. It’s Île Royale Redux.

A few facts about the country of French Guiana, from one of our onboard lecturers :

• French Guiana is 1/6 the size of France, of which it is an ‘overseas department.’ Locals have no interest in declaring their independence.

• It’s 90% jungle. To prevent being swallowed up, the other 10% must be constantly cut back and cleared.

• Columbus landed here in 1498, on his third voyage, and called it ‘the Land of Pariahs.’ Why? There is speculation — not proven — that the original Amerindian inhabitants used it as a penal colony. Foreshadowing...

• U.S. history is simple compared to so much of the rest of the world. The colonization of what eventually became French Guiana goes like this: 1498 Columbus... 1608 brief attempt by Italy... 1624 France arrives, but contested by Portugal... 1630 and 1645 French settle but abandon both times when attacked by local inhabitants... 1658 the Dutch West India Company... until 1664, the French again... 1667, the Brits... 1667 back to France via a treaty... 1676 the Dutch again... 1763 Treaty of Paris: France loses all its American possessions except French Guiana and a few islands. Got it?

• King Louis XV wanted to populate his remaining New World colony and ordered people to sail over and settle. Who would come here, to a part of the world that was nearly all jungle? Settling in a colony was a way — a very difficult way — to become landowners, since acquiring land was impossible in France unless you were aristocracy. People who might know nothing about farming came here to farm — in a jungle. The French government induced others with the lure of gold and silver, which was here, but not in the copious quantities the Spanish had found when they conquered and plundered the gold-encrusted Incas and Aztecs in the 1500s elsewhere in South America.

• Besides being covered in jungle, the colony abounded in tropical diseases. (We won’t talk about the European diseases new settlers brought, which killed huge numbers of native populations throughout the New World.)

• The country’s early exports included timber, spices (cayenne pepper takes its name from the capital, Cayenne) and sugar cane. Both spice and cane plantations required back-breaking labor — by imported African slaves.

• When France abolished slavery in 1848, immigrants arrived from India, Malaysia and China. Many did not want to work in the cane fields and set up small shops and businesses.

• France tried in the 1970s to set up businesses, but it costs so much to clear the jungle (and keep it clear), build roads through the jungle to transport goods, etc., that only small-scale fishing turns a small-scale profit.

• One business that has worked is outer space: In 1968 France built and still maintains an exploratory missile-launching Space Center here.

• Remember the lure of gold? Russia’s #2 oligarch wants to open a gold mine. The effect on the environment — and the opportunities for corruption, graft, and crime — would be catastrophic. Watch the news...

Back to the island...

The large brown rodent with a wide orange band around his belly that I saw last year — but did not get a photo of — is the red-rumped agouti. Now you know. I didn’t see one this trip, though others did.

Along with several hundred Vikings, a few Guianans were visiting — and feeding the capuchin monkeys.

There’s a small museum that explains the history of the penal colony and its most famous prisoner: Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an Alsatian army officer who was convicted of treason in 1894. He was exonerated thanks to Émile Zola’s open letter J’accuse, which laid open the antisemitism and miscarriage of justice that had led to Dreyfus’ 5-year incarceration.

During the French Revolution, political prisoners had been shipped to prisons in French Guiana. Regardless of the crime, being sent to Île du Diable — or Île Royale — was a death sentence for 75% of the prisoners, who did not survive their incarceration. If the inhumane treatment didn’t kill you, the tropical diseases would. Or you might just go mad.​

The penal colony was closed — finally — in 1952. The only people who were left — to rot — in their cells, chained to their bunks, were those prisoners who had arrived here mentally ill, or who had gone insane while here.

The map says this is a ‘guesthouse’...

The chapel... the photograph is of one of the ‘ancien’ prisoners. Very tough to read but it appears to say that if a prisoner survived his sentence, he was freed but had to find work in order to avoid being arrested as a vagrant. He could go back to France — but only if he paid his own passage. I seriously doubt many were able to.

My favorite photo from my earlier visit...

Heading ‘home’ to the Sea...

Next stop: The Amazon! #