v14_1596 - FRENCH GUIANA 1 franc Poitevin, pénitencier de Cayenne n.d.

FRENCH GUIANA

(18th-19th centuries)

Guyana was discovered in 1500 by the Spaniards who thought they had found El Dorado. The French visited the coasts from the beginning of the 17th century. Cayenne was founded in 1637 but, from 1676, was occupied by the Dutch. Reconquered at the end of the same year, it remained a crown colony until the Revolution. Besieged by the English in 1809 and occupied by the Portuguese from 1810 to 1814, it was returned to France by the Treaties of Paris of 1814 and 1815 and definitively recovered from 1818. Napoleon III was to found a prison there in 1852 on Devil's Island, where Dreyfus will be interned, and which will not be suppressed until 1945.