Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni
Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni (; gcr, Senloran di Maronni) is a commune of French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France located in South America. Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni is one of the three sub-prefectures of French Guiana and the seat ...
was the main penal colony in French Guiana for more than a century. Some of the buildings were restored in the early 1980s.
History
On 22 November 1850, Napoleon III declared: "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."
The first batch of prisoners left the Breton port of Brest for the ﾃ四es du Salut on 31 March 1852. The prison at St-Laurent-du-Maroni was established on the banks of the
Maroni River
The Maroni or Marowijne (french: link=no, Maroni, nl, Marowijne, Sranan Tongo: ''Marwina-Liba'') is a river in South America that forms the border between French Guiana and Suriname.
Course
The Maroni runs through the Guianan moist forest ...
on 21 February 1858. All the prisoners sent from France were taken there before being transferred to other prisons or camps. The town of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni proper was founded on 16 March 1880; it was a penal town whose inhabitants were nearly all guards or liberated prisoners. The hospital was built in 1912, and the prison itself closed in 1946, the same year the whole colonial penal system was abolished.
Life in the prison
The prison at Saint-Laurent was but a temporary stop for most prisoners. Only a small number of men ever stayed in Saint-Laurent for long, and they were nearly all employed in the penitentiary administration or were considered harmless and unlikely to try to escape.
When a ship (such as ''La Loire'' or ''La Martiniﾃｨre'') arrived from
Saint-Martin-de-Rﾃｩ
Saint-Martin-de-Rﾃｩ (, literally ''Saint-Martin of Rﾃｩ''; Saintongeais: ''Sﾃｩnt-Martin-de-Rﾃｩ'') is a commune in the western French department of Charente-Maritime.Henri Charriﾃｨre, who later wrote '' Papillon''.) The new prisoners then stayed for a while in Saint-Laurent, where they were sorted into different camps or prisons. The ones considered to be shifty and eager to escape were sent to the islands along with the recidivists and ex-escapees. The least dangerous men, condemned to prison for petty offences, were offered jobs in the penitentiary administration. The prisoners were also separated by nationality, as there were special camps reserved for those from Indochina, and the Arabs often became guards.
Since there was a hospital in Saint-Laurent, many prisoners faked illnesses to get sent there, where they had plenty of time to plot escapes (as experienced and written by, among others, Charriﾃｨre). Since many prisoners worked in the hospital, this was not terribly hard to do.
Those who were lucky enough to stay in Saint-Laurent were generally better treated than prisoners in other camps. Their work was simple, they were free to go wherever they wanted inside the prison, and were given better rations. Camp
Charvein
Charvein is a village in the Mana commune of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in French Guiana. Charvein was the location of Camp Charvein, one of the most notorious camps of the Prison of St-Laurent-du-Maroni. From 1989 until 1992, Charvein was the locati ...
was one of the most notorious camps, and known as "Camp de la Mort" (camp of death).
See also
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Devil's Island
The penal colony of Cayenne ( French: ''Bagne de Cayenne''), commonly known as Devil's Island (''ﾃ四e du Diable''), was a French penal colony that operated for 100 years, from 1852 to 1952, and officially closed in 1953 in the Salvation Islands ...
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Prison of the Annamites
Prison of the Annamites (French: ''Bagne des Annamites'' or ''Camp Crique Anguille'') is a former prison in the commune of Montsinﾃｩry-Tonnegrande in French Guiana. The prison was built for Annamite prisoners who had revolted against French rule. ...
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Renﾃｩ Belbenoit
Renﾃｩ (''born again'' or ''reborn'' in French) is a common first name in French-speaking, Spanish-speaking, and German-speaking countries. It derives from the Latin name Renatus.
Renﾃｩ is the masculine form of the name (Renﾃｩe being the feminine ...