Dec 31

It was raining at breakfast time with low grey clouds as we headed towards Iles du Salut, Islands of Salvation aka Devil's Island Prison Group.  By the time we arrived at 1:00pm the sun was out and it was hot & humid.  Isles du Salut had a strange beginning.  France owned the area known as French 

Guiana (just below British Giuana, a section of which became Surinam when it was traded to Holland in exchange for the small colonial island New Amsterdam, currently called Manhattan.)  French Guiana is actually a Department of France (like a state) and not a colony or territory.  In the late 1700s France wanted to populate it and printed up glorified pamphlets promising free land and 3 years of free food & supplies in this "paradise."  12,000 French citizens took up the offer and sailed to French Guiana.  Unfortunately the area is protected from the Atlantic winds so there was no cooling breeze to sooth the extreme heat & humidity.  Within 6 months, 9,000 of the immigrants were dead from tropical diseases and malnutrition.  The remaining 3,000 wanted to go home but there were only ships for 2,000.  The remaining 1,000 wretched souls discovered that the 3 islands about 10 miles off shore from what is now the city of Kourou (home of the European Space Canter) had winds and so they moved there until a ship came to take them home about a year later.  They named the island group Iles du Salut (Islands of Salvation) and the individual islands Ile Royale, Ile du Diable and Ile Saint Joseph.  The islands remained uninhabited until 1852 when Emperor Napolean decided to make them a penal colony.  Ile Royale was the administrative center and home for guards & families.  It also held the common prisoners and the majority of the ruins are on it.  It's also the island where Steve McQueen's & Dustin Hoffman's characters in the movie Papillon were housed.  Ile St Joseph housed the most troublesome prisoners and Ile du Diable housed the political prisoners, the most notable being Alfred Dreyfus.  The islands served as a penitentiary until 1953.