Beyond Papillon: The French Overseas Penal Colonies, 1854-1952

1. Back to the Future: France and the Penal Colonization

T 1. Back to the Future France and Penal Colonization By the mid-nineteenth century the banishment of political prisoners overseas had long been the policy, if not the actual practice, of penal administration in France. During the Revolution, dissidents were deported to the territorial holding of Louisiana, where they were not incarcerated in any way upon their arrival but simply required to live in a designated area for a specified length of time. Indeed, most of those exiled were later pardoned and repatriated. Although deportation for political offenses was an official part of the Napoleonic Code of 1810, it was something of a dead letter, as a suitable overseas replacement for the former American territory could never be found.1 The event that impelled the French state to reevaluate its position on penal colonization was the Revolution of 1848. To forestall continued political unrest and to lessen the burden on a penal system charged with housing the twelve thousand June Days insurgents sentenced to prison terms by Louis Napoleon’s hastily convened tribunals, the president issued an emergency decree to transport these individuals to a “fortified enclosure” outside continental France. Although a number of possible locales were discussed, including Senegal, Madagascar, and even the arctic Kerguelen Islands, it was eventually decided that the insurgents be relocated to Algeria.2 Not until 1854 was legislation passed that formally established the South American territory of French Guiana as a destination for common-law criminals convicted of felonies. Heretofore they had typically served as galériens (oarsmen) on the galleys, which, given the brutal conditions aboard these vessels, was akin to a death sentence. Advances in design that allowed for T France and Penal Colonization  more efficient sailing, however, made the ships and the convicts necessary for their propulsion obsolete, and the management and maintenance of the convicts who endured years of arduous rowing was turned over to the Ministry of the Marine. In 1748 the government’s Mediterranean galley fleet was decommissioned, and prisoners were sentenced to travaux forcés (hard labor) in such port cities as Toulon, Brest, and Rochefort.3 The vast majority of prisoners were sent to Toulon, where they were paired together in chains on board the old galleys moored as hulks in the harbor until they had rotted away, at which time the prisoners were placed on pontoons. At the other locales, men were housed in shore prisons. The latter were not jails with cells but barracks-like structures where inmates were chained to their tolards (long wooden planks) at night. These crowded, dirty, and disease-ridden quarters were the site of “violence, trafficking, and sexual deprivation,” as there was “no efficient supervision” of the men.4 In the ports, the prisoners helped build, repair (attending to masts and ropes), and provision ships. Convicts typically worked twelve to thirteen hours a day for a wage of ten to fifteen centimes, which they spent on extra food and wine.5 Those possessing some mechanical skill had the opportunity to engage in more delicate tasks, such as joinery, drilling, and the caulking of ships, but most were “needed to carry heavy loads, turn wheels, drive pumps, and pull cables.”6 The prison population in the dockyards was about fifty-four hundred in 1789,7 not including the forçats libérés, those freed at the end of their prison term. Whatever their original offense, it was generally agreed that those who completed their sentences were a significant source of crime and disorder in the port towns. Indeed, local officials complained of escapes and the frequent theft of tools and materials that were resold by prisoners to free workers. Moreover, statistics compiled in the Compte générale de l’administration de la justice criminelle—the first government-sanctioned retrospective study of crime—seemed to indicate that France experienced an unprecedented wave of crime during the first half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, the twelve years between 1825 and 1837 saw a 39 percent growth in the number of criminal offenses and reported investigated crimes. As official crime statistics also pointed to a dramatic increase in the percentage of those accused T France and Penal Colonization  of both repeat felonies (15.5 percent from 1826-30 to 26.2 percent in 184650 ) and misdemeanors (3 percent from 1826-30 to 17 percent by 1846-50),8 concern...