Islands of the Hello

The islands of the Hello are consisted three small island S of origin volcanic attached to the Guyana, and located at a score of kilometers at broad of Kourou, although the Islands of the Hello belong to the territory of the commune of Cayenne and Cayenne 1 {{er}} North-western Canton. Only the Royal islands and Saint-Joseph are accessible.

Islands of north in south:

History

Initially named “Islands of the Triangle” (because of their provision) by the first explorers, the islands of the Hello took then the sinister name of “Islands of the Devil” because of the strong marine currents which made their access very perilous, but also of the tragedy forwarding of Kourou in 1763, which showed a hecatomb.

The epidemics of yellow fever due to the insalubrity of the Guianese climate, the lack of food and drinking water, as well as the precarious installations and the lack of organization, had decimated most of the colonists of French origin, convoyed in Guyana to populate the territory. The survivors, who found refuge on these islands with the climate more favorable and deprived of mosquitos, renamed them then “Islands of the Hello”.

After the first colonists, it should not be forgotten that it is to the black slaves that was entrusted the heavy task to clear these territories, and whose survivors were authorized to join those of the continent, to found the first communities along the river Maroni.

Bagne

But this “safety” was of short duration and the reputation of “cursed triangle” and “ground of hell” was going to be confirmed as of the First republic by the construction of a fortress, in 1793, to accommodate the first political deportees, to start with some two hundred refractory priests.

Then, with the abolition of slavery in 1848 and the political opposition growing with the bagnes on the metropolitan territory, the idea to substitute convicts for the slaves is done day. Under the Second Empire, starting from 1854, the prison authorities founds there one of the hardest Bagne S in the world, where will pass 70 000 prisoners. The Royale island accommodated the administration as well as the hospital, the Saint-Joseph island was useful for the “rebels” and Devil's Island for the spies, the political prisoners or of common right. It was however about the least hard bagne of Guyana. Death rate was there lower than those of the bagnes established in full Guianese forest, like the bagne of Annamites. But the detention conditions were not less humiliating with cells without roof, covered with a simple grid, as with the bagne of Saint-Joseph, for example, where all the gestures of the prisoners were épiés by the guards which were held above.

Alfred Dreyfus (1894) and Guillaume Seznec (1923) was the most famous prisoners, as Henri Charrière (1933) which described in its book Papillon its stay and its escape bids. Lastly, Benjamin Ullmo (1908) will also pass two thirds of its life to Devil's Island, in the same box where Dreyfus lived.

After the closing of the bagne which, decided by an Order in Council of the Daladier government in 1938, was carried out only in 1947, the pénitencières installations will be left in their state of great dilapidation until the establishment of the Guianese Space center in 1965 in Kourou. Become the property of the National center of space studies (CNES) because of their strategic interest, which had with their position on the trajectory of the fused ARIANE, the islands of the Hello are evacuated before each launching, except for the owner of the inn of the island Royale and of some gendarmes.

Since the years 1980, thanks to the tourist rise of the islands and the will to safeguard part of the historical heritage, the CNES allowed the repairing of the Vault of Royal, of the Dreyfus house (nonworth visiting) like certain cells of the district of condemned. Lastly, the house of the Director was arranged in Museum of Bagne.

Random links: