6. Devil’s Island was but one of several prisons of the Penal Colony of Cayenne
For just over a century the French operated a prison complex as a penal colony in present day Suriname which is usually referred to as Devil’s Island. In fact, Devil’s Island was originally used by the penal colony as a refuge for lepers. By the 1890s the island was used to house political prisoners. It was part of a colony which included several labor camps on the mainland, a reception and processing center on Ile Royale, and a punishment facility on Saint-Joseph Island, where inmates were held in isolation and darkness, not permitted to speak to one another. The entire complex presented conditions which made transportation there a virtual death sentence, from violence, malnutrition, or disease.
In order to maintain a colony in French Guiana, beginning in 1854 prisoners in the penal colony were forced to remain in the region, on the mainland, for a period of time equal to the length of their sentence once it was completed. A seven year imprisonment meant a required stay of seven years following release. Most of the prisoners sent to the penal colony never saw France again. In the late 19th and early 20th century activists clamored to reform the prison system and close the penal facilities, but France continued to send prisoners there until it finally began to shut down the penal colony in 1946. It took seven years to complete the process, and by then the penal colony known as Devil’s Island had become one of the most infamous in history.