Devil's Island
French penal colony
Devil's Island is a small island off the coast of French Guiana, notorious as the site of a brutal French penal colony that operated from 1852 to 1953.
Political prisoners and serious criminals were sent there under harsh conditions; few survived.
The name evokes imprisonment, exile, and inescapable confinement: Working there felt like being sent to Devil's Island.
- penal colonyDistant settlement for exiled criminals
- French colonyLand governed from Paris
- French GuianaOverseas territory in Amazonia
- exileBanishment from homeland
- anti-SemitismHostility toward Jewish people
incarceration · life sentence · hard labor · colonial history · Atlantic Ocean · Steve McQueen · isolation · no return · forced labor · Dreyfus Affair · solitary confinement · 19th century · rocky terrain · penal servitude · political prisoners · memoirs · convicts · prison literature
- prisonsprison, inmates, cells, prisons, prisoner
- captivitycaptive, prisoner, detained, imprisoned, incarcerated
- Historic IslandsAlcatraz, Elba, St. Helena, Iwo Jima, Midway
- Mysterious IslandsAtlantis, Bermuda Triangle, Avalon, Lemuria, Mu
- Penal Coloniespenal colony, penal settlement, transportees, convict, convict ship
- penal historyprison, prisons, gaols, jails, penitentiaries
Devil's Islandsanctuary
Protected sacred space
safe haven · refuge · haven · paradise · freedom
Devil's IslandParadise Island
Idealized tropical retreat
Garden of Eden · heaven · Elysium · promised land · Shangri-La
Devil's Islandmainland
Principal connected territory
continent · home country · France · metropolis · Paris
devil, island, devilish, devilry, deviled, deviling, devilishly, devilishness, devilment