Devil’s Island, French Guiana

            Tuesday, 16 Jan 2018 – Today our ship anchored off the coast of a cluster of three islands.  All passengers wishing to go ashore received tickets to board a tender, which left every 30 minutes.  Since it was only a short distance, in very little time we were on an island.
            Although it seemed that our destination today was to be “Devil’s Island,” further information clarifies the situation:  The Îles du Salut (Salvation Islands, in French) consists of three main islands: (1) Île Royale, (2) Île Ste. Joseph, and (3) Île du Diable.  The Salvation Islands, so-called because missionaries went there to escape a plague on the mainland, are a group of small islands of volcanic origins about 6.8 miles off the coast of French Guiana.  Originally, the entire group was called the Îles du Diable (“Devil Islands”) by their earliest known settlers, a group of colonists from France who retreated to the islands in the 1760’s from the unhealthy lowlands around Kourou.
            Today our ship’s tenders took us to the Île Royale.  After climbing up a long path and then numerous steps, we found ourselves near some small buildings. 

Governor's House (museum)

            On the walls inside the Governor’s House (museum) were numerous paintings of prisoners, shown as they lived, in cells, at work, awaiting the guillotine, being buried at sea, etc.  A sign near the door told of the painter, Francis LeGrange, who had himself been a prisoner at Devil’s Island.  Although LeGrange (1894-1964) was a good painter, he could earn more money by falsifying bank notes, paintings of others, and rare stamps. (It was said that he copied paintings better than he created them!)  In 1931, when he was 36, his livelihood drew suspicions, and he was sentenced to ten years of forced labor at the prison on Île Royale.  Francis LeGrange’s paintings provide a major historical testimony of the everyday life inside the Devil Island Prisons.
            Devil’s Island was the commonly known name for the penal colony of Cayenne, and was a famous prison of the 19th and 20th century.  It operated at several locations in French Guiana.  Opened in 1852, it was notorious for being used for internal exile of French political prisoners.  It is also known for its harsh treatment of criminals who were deported there from all parts of the French empire.  In 1938 the French government stopped sending prisoners to Devil’s Island, and in 1953 the prison system was finally closed entirely.
            The most famous prisoner was Capt. Alfred Dreyfus (born in 1859), a French-Jewish artillery officer who was wrongly accused of selling military secrets to the Germans.  In 1895 with poor evidence, Dreyfus was summarily convicted in a secret court martial, publicly stripped of his army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island.  His conviction was based primarily on anti-Semitism.  The Dreyfus affair became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French history.  In 1908 Dreyfus was officially exonerated by a military commission; the following day, he was readmitted into the army with a promotion to the rank of major.  In his 50’s, he served on the Western Front during World War I, mostly behind the lines, though he also performed front-line defense at Verdun.  During that war, Dreyfus rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.  He died in Paris, aged 75, in 1935.
            Although we could see paths which might lead to more buildings, with a very few people from our ship venturing onto them, in a short time we were dripping with perspiration in that humid, very uncomfortable environment.  At that point, we believed we had seen enough of this depressing site.  Retracing our steps back down to the pier, we soon boarded a tender and returned to the ship.
            Soon afterward, we were in the pool, enjoying a cool, relaxing swim and brief “soak” in the hot tub before lunch.
            This evening we attended our second Captain’s Welcome Cocktail Party, just like the event held on January 4th.  The first one was soon after we boarded in Miami to start the first segment of this cruise, and this second one (tonight) was held after the start of the second segment.  (We assume that a third party will be held after boarding in Cape Town, for the third segment.)  Besides enjoying the free drinks, our main pleasure is the opportunity for dancing, as the orchestra plays before and after the introductions of the ship personnel.  This time, we ended up sitting at a table with a couple whose cabin is next door to ours, Carissa and Don, of Scottsdale, Arizona.  (Incredibly, this is their third World Cruise; and each time they have stayed in the same cabin!)
            After the orchestra stopped playing, we went to eat dinner, tonight in the Grand Dining Hall (for only our third time so far).  Here we were seated with Rich and Helma of Allentown, PA.  Helma explains that her parents were immigrants from Austria, and her name is spelled “Thelma,” without the “T.”  In her early years, she lived not far from Des Moines, Iowa, where she had been a teacher/counselor.  The four of us found so many mutual interests and beliefs to discuss that we stayed at the table talking at length – and, as a result, we missed our usual final dancing of the evening from 8:45 to 9:15 PM.