The Îles du Salut lie about 14 kilometres off Kourou, where forest, volcanic rock and powerful currents surround the remains of French Guiana’s penal colony. The group comprises Île Royale, Île Saint-Joseph and Île du Diable, or Devil’s Island. Their beauty is immediate, but it should not soften the history preserved in cells, hospital ruins, warders’ buildings and cemeteries. For nearly a century, the islands formed part of a coercive transportation system marked by isolation, disease, punishment and death.
France established penal transportation to Guiana in 1852, and the wider system endured until the mid-twentieth century. Île Royale served as the administrative centre, with a hospital, chapel, officers’ quarters and prisoners’ buildings. Saint-Joseph became particularly associated with solitary confinement. Devil’s Island held political prisoners, most famously Captain Alfred Dreyfus from 1895 to 1899, after his wrongful conviction in an antisemitic miscarriage of justice that divided France. The islands’ protected buildings now form a nationally recognised heritage ensemble.