French Guiana

Origins

French attempts to settle Cayenne began in the early 17th century, including one in 1643 that ended in disaster. In 1664 a lasting settlement was established at Cayenne under Antoine Lefebvre de La Barre. The Dutch and English contested it, but France held it from 1676, apart from a Portuguese-Brazilian occupation from 1809 to 1817.

Rule and society

The colony produced sugar, spices and annatto with enslaved African labour, but the population remained small. The Kourou expedition of 1763 sent some 12,000 settlers, most of whom died of disease. Slavery was abolished in 1794, restored in 1802 and finally ended in 1848. From 1852 to 1953 the colony held a penal colony, the bagne, including the Îles du Salut, where Alfred Dreyfus was held on Devil's Island. Gold rushes drew prospectors from the 1850s.

To the present

French Guiana became an overseas department of France in 1946. The Guiana Space Centre opened at Kourou in 1968 and now launches European Ariane rockets. Since 2015 it has been a single territorial collectivity, part of the European Union.