On April 18 2008, Vietnamese journalist Danh Đức was standing in the rain at the Kourou Space Centre, the European Space Agency’s spaceport in French Guiana, a territory that is, as an overseas département, still an integral part of France. Eyes heavenward, Danh Đức was eager to witness the launch Continue Reading
Salvation, Commerce, and Repatriation: The Salvation Army in French Guiana
Among the materials held in the archives of French Guiana is a box of papers relating to the activities of the Armée du Salut, or Salvation Army, in France’s mainland South American colony in the 1930s. French Guiana became a penal colony in 1854. It held under-sentence convicts from all Continue Reading
Convicts from French Indochina in the Global French Empire
Throughout the ninety-year French colonization of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos (1863-1954), approximately eight thousand prisoners were exiled to twelve different geographical locations the length and breadth of the colonial French Empire. From Gabon to Guiana, there was hardly a corner to which these prisoners were not sent. Prisoners from Indochina Continue Reading