Behind the walls

The penal colony has been active in French Guyana over one century (1852-1953). One of the most important vestige of this punishment system can still be seen in Saint Laurent du Maroni, a city set along the Maroni river.  Convicted (but also innocent) people where transported from France up to the "camp de transportation" in this penitentiary township before being distributed in the different forced labour camps all over French Guyana. Working conditions were devastating and mortality extremely high.
This enterprise, despite the promising words* of Louis Napoleon on 22/11/1850 (two years and a half after the Abolitionism was voted by the interim government of the 2nd Republic**) proved to be a total disaster!
Later, thanks to the efforts of Albert Londres, and other less known people, the barbarity of such a system became openly known. Eventually, after the 2nd world war, France was condemned by the United Nation and dropped the penal colony.


*"Six thousand condemned men in our prisons weigh heavily on our budget, becoming increasingly depraved and constantly menacing our society. I think it is possible to make the sentence of forced labour more effective, more moralising, less expensive and more humane by using it to further the progress of French colonisation."
** Decree dated 27th April 1848

The pictures below give a flavor of what can still be seen today at the "camp de transportation" in Saint Laurent du Maroni. Some prisons are kept for the memory but the place has become an "open"  cultural and administration center.

Bertrand Piéchaud's sculpture "le bagnard de Saint laurent/la peine du bagnard" (the prisoner of Saint Laurent) close to the entrance of the transportation camp.
Note: On the original sculpture (right picture), the left ankle of the desperate prisoner is shackled with a chain attached to the cube. This feature has now disappeared (left picture).