French Guiana historical timeline

History

French Guiana's history is the record of a place that resisted every use France put it to -- colony, dumping ground, prison -- until the space age found the one thing it had that nowhere else in Europe did, a coast five degrees from the equator with open sea to the east. What a visitor sees -- Fort Cépérou's hill, the Camp de la Transportation, the cells on Île Royale, the launch pads at Kourou, the Hmong fields at Cacao -- is the record.

Chronology

before 1500 The Kalina, Lokono, Palikur, Teko, Wayampi and Wayana inhabit the coast and rivers; the first Europeans arrive in the expeditions of Christopher Columbus shortly before 1500, and a first French establishment is recorded in 1503.
1643 After attempts of 1604 and 1624 driven off by the Portuguese, the French found Cayenne beside a fort on the hill of the chief Cépérou, abandon it under Amerindian attack, lose it to the Dutch West India Company in 1658 and return for good in 1664, founding Sinnamary the same year.
1763 Having lost New France, Choiseul sends 10,000 to 12,000 settlers to Kourou; some 6,000 die of fever within the year and the survivors recover on the mosquito-free islands offshore, which take the name Salvation Islands; the colony is nicknamed Green Hell.
1794 The Convention's abolition of slavery of February 1794 is applied in French Guiana; the same year 193 followers of Robespierre are deported here, and when Pichegru's deputies follow in 1797 only 54 are alive. A Portuguese-British squadron holds the colony from 1809 until the 1814 Paris Treaty returns it.
1852 The first shiploads of chained convicts arrive; Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni becomes the reception camp from 1858, Île Royale the general prison, Saint-Joseph the solitary cells, Devil's Island the political prison; the 1885 law of relégation adds habitual thieves; more than 80,000 prisoners are sent and most never return, the death rate reaching 75 per cent at its worst.
1895 Alfred Dreyfus is held on Devil's Island from 1895 to 1899. One prisoner out of the more than 80,000 sent here is the reason the name Devil's Island is recognised worldwide. The Salvation Islands the survivors of Kourou had retreated to in 1763 became first the general prison, then the place the Dreyfus affair is remembered, and that single case is why the ruins on them are read as a monument rather than as a derelict prison.
1946 French Guiana becomes an overseas department on 19 March.
1953 The penal colony, phased out after the department was created, is formally closed and its last remnants are gone by 1953. Henri Charrière's Papillon followed in 1969. The ruins at Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni and on the Salvation Islands are maintained as monuments rather than cleared, so the territory's worst century is also the one it puts in front of visitors.
1968 Kourou, chosen in 1964 for its latitude, becomes operational as the Guiana Space Centre; the first launch is on 10 March 1970; Ariane follows, and flight VA256 carries the James Webb Space Telescope.
1977 Hmong refugees from Laos are settled at Cacao and Javouhey in 1977, and more than 10,000 Maroon refugees cross the Maroni from Suriname's civil war in the late 1980s. Both were settled where they still are, which is why a territory of fewer than 300,000 people contains a Laotian village and a Maroon river frontier a few hours apart, and why neither appears in the older account of French Guiana as a French department with an Amerindian interior.
2007 The Guiana Amazonian Park is created by decree on 28 February over 41 per cent of the territory; the Oyapock bridge to Brazil is completed in 2011 and opened on 18 March 2017; a 2010 referendum rejects autonomy but approves a single territorial collectivity, in place from December 2015.
2017 The strikes of March 2017 produce the largest demonstration in the territory's history. They came nine years after the Amazonian park was created and seven after the referendum on autonomy.

What survived, and how

The Amerindian peoples survived where the colony could not reach them, up the rivers, and the Maroons survived by crossing one. The prisons survived because they were built of stone on islands nobody wanted; the forest survived because the soils were too poor to farm and the rivers too broken by rapids to log. What the space centre changed was the coast; the interior it has had to protect.

Verified against Wikipedia, September 2026.

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Sources & verification Covers the sourced claims on this page.

Checked against Wikipedia — It has a very low population density, with only 3.88 PD/sqkm. About half of its residents live in its capital, Cayenne. Approximately 98.9% of French Guiana…, Fully integrated in the French Republic since 1946, French Guiana is a part of the European Union, and its official currency is the euro. A large part of…, The first French establishment is recorded in 1503, but France did not establish a durable presence until colonists founded Cayenne in 1643, the National Convention voted to abolish the French slave trade and slavery in France's overseas colonies in February 1794 ... the 1794 decree was only…, Île du Diable (Devil's Island) was the site of a small prison facility, part of a larger penal system by the same name, which consisted of prisons on three…, A Portuguese-British naval squadron took French Guiana for the Portuguese Empire in 1809. It was returned to France with the signing of the Treaty of Paris…, In the late 1980s, more than 10,000 Surinamese refugees, mostly Maroons, arrived in French Guiana, fleeing the Surinamese Civil War. More recently, French…, In a 2010 referendum, transition to a 'single territorial collectivity' under Article 73 of the Constitution was approved, On 20 March 2017, French Guianese workers began going on strike and demonstrating for more resources and infrastructure. 28 March 2017 was the day of the…, French Guiana has about 2,200 km of roads, which are divided into: * National roads (440 km), divided into N1, N2, N3 and N4 ... N1, completed in the 1990s,…, The official language of French Guiana is French, and it is the predominant language of the department, spoken by most residents as a first or second…, Sport in French Guiana dates back to long before the colonial period. Popularized since the 19th century, the first sports competition organized to…, In 2019, the GDP of French Guiana at market exchange rates was US$4.93 billion (€4.41 billion), The first Europeans arrived in the expeditions of Christopher Columbus, shortly before 1500, In 1624, the French attempted to settle in the area but were forced to abandon it in the face of hostility from the Portuguese, who viewed it as a violation…, In 1794, after the execution of Maximilien Robespierre, 193 of his followers were sent to French Guiana. In 1797, the republican general Pichegru and many…, In 1852, the first shiploads of chained convicts arrived from France. In 1885, to get rid of habitual criminals and to increase the number of colonists, the…, The prisoners would arrive at St Laurent du Maroni before being transported to various camps throughout the country. The Iles du Salut was used to house…, French Guiana became an overseas département of France on 19 March 1946. The infamous penal colonies, including Devil's Island, were gradually phased out…, In 1964, Kourou was chosen to be the launch site for rockets, largely due to its favourable location near the equator. The Guiana Space Centre was built and…, The 1970s saw the settlement of Hmong refugees from Laos in the county, primarily to the towns of Javouhey and Cacao, In a 2010 referendum, French Guianans voted against autonomy., The town had a population of 24,824 inhabitants in 2023, That same year, 1763, as agreed in the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain took control of New France. Having lost their largest and richest colony, the French…, Kourou is located approximately north of the equator at a latitude of 5°. In operation since 1968, it is a suitable location for a spaceport because of its…, The Guiana Space Centre (as per CNES) also contains the Îles du Salut, a former penal colony including the infamous Devil's Island. Now a tourist site, the…, Between 1852 and 1953, the islands were part of a notorious penal colony for France's worst criminals ... Île Royale was the reception centre for the penal…, was a French penal colony that operated for 100 years, from 1852 to 1952, and officially closed in 1953, Cayenne is the largest Francophone city of the South American continent. In the 2023 census, there were 153,884 inhabitants in the metropolitan area of…, French colonists returned in 1643 and founded Cayenne, It was used as a French penal colony from 1854 to 1938, Place des Palmistes ... Initially it was a plaza to aerate the city after the demolition of the city walls in 1810, In early colonial times, the settlers held the carnival, but it was forbidden to slaves. Braving the ban, slaves held clandestine festivals ... *Fat Sunday:…, It is named after Cépérou, a celebrated indigenous chief who ceded the land. The original wooden fort was built on a hill looking over the mouth of the…, Construction of the first church started in 1825, It is the second most populous city of French Guiana, with 54,429 inhabitants at the January 2023 census. Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni was the site of a penal…, The creation of the park was made effective by decree on February 28, 2007, Most of the population are Hmong farmers, refugees from Laos who were resettled in French Guiana in 1977. (September 2026).