Some 70,000 convicts were sent here but very few made it out alive.
With conditions harsh enough to shatter the spirits of even the most resilient criminals,
this was truly a land of torment, the final destination for many unfortunate souls.
Welcome to Devil’s Island, the world’s most notorious prison to ever be forgotten.
Sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it?
With a treacherous landscape and an ominous past, you’d better watch your step because
danger lurks in every direction.
The name, “Devil’s island,” was actually coined by the prisoners themselves, which
should give you some clue about the conditions that they lived in.
Officially, it was called “Bagne de Cayenne,” otherwise known as the penal colony of Cayenne.
Located about 9 to 10 miles off the Atlantic coast from Kourou, a small town in French
Guiana on the northeastern coast of South America, reside three small, rocky islands.
These are known as the Salvation Islands, also known as the Iles du Salut in French.
In this case, the term, “salvation,” would seem like an oxymoron.
The smallest of the three islands is Devil’s island, a narrow strip of land about 3,900
feet long and roughly 1,320 feet wide.
Don’t let the palm trees fool you.
This was no island paradise.
Today an overgrown jungle is slowly hiding the remnants of what was once a penal, or
“exile,” colony, a virtual hell here on Earth.
Established by Emperor Napoleon III in 1852, the island was originally used as a leper
colony to quarantine people with leprosy before later being used to incarcerate political
prisoners and criminals.
Throughout a long stretch of time consisting of around 100 years, many were convicted here,
including murderers, rapists, and those deemed as an overall threat to society.
Some men, however, were sent here despite being innocent of the charges that were staged
against them.
It didn’t matter what category of criminal you were listed under, if you were unlucky
enough to be sent here, you endured the same fate as everyone else.
Items on the agenda included squeezing into tight living spaces, getting covered in dirt,
and being abused by other inmates.
Whether you were a petty thief or a savage murderer, you could expect to be stripped
of your identity and thrown into the mix.
You were forced to cohabit the same environment and mingle with those more dangerous than
you.
Not surprisingly, fights were a regular occurrence amongst the prisoners, many of which ended
in murders that later went unpunished.
No one really cared whether people lived or died.
Isolated on a treacherous island with no way out, why would anyone bother punishing the
prisoners?
It “only required paperwork,” a guide was quoted saying to Atlas Obscura during
a visit to the island.
“It was easier,” he explained, “to let nature take its course and let them die of
harsh labor, tropical disease or a failed attempt to escape.”
When the prisoners were punished on rare occasions, they were commonly put in isolation for months
at a time.
Imagine going a long time in a dark room with no one to talk to.
Some convicts were even placed in deep, 12 by 12-foot holes with bars on top instead
of a roof so that they’d be subject to all kinds of weather conditions without a shelter
to protect them.
One prisoner was reportedly tied to a tree deep in the jungle as punishment for attempting
to attack a guard.
He was left to endure the elements, vulnerable to nature’s wrath.
The next day, he was discovered dead.
Out of 70,000-something men, three-quarters of them died from disease, hunger and mistreatment.
Many also fell prey to insects such as ants, as well as bats and rats picking at their
rotting bodies.
Many convicts even died on the way to the island since even the trip in and of itself
was extremely dangerous.
Many inmates were forced to share tiny, cramped cells with one another in filthy conditions.
To put this into perspective, these cells were about the same size as the common household
bathroom.
As an exercise, if you were to try squeezing your entire family into one, maybe you’d
have a better idea of what it might’ve been like.
Say goodbye to your privacy.
We wouldn’t recommend trying this if you’re claustrophobic though.
After 1885, the population of Devil’s Island greatly increased as the French government
started sending more prisoners, including an influx of more convicts charged with smaller
offences, not just hardened criminals.
The conditions became ever more crowded as a result.
Prisoners were routinely shackled at night, their legs tied to an iron rod.
With the natural desire to shift and adjust your sleeping position throughout the night,
it’s easy to imagine that this would have been torture.
During the day, prisoners were forced to move around in chains.
With starvation being common, many resembled walking skeletons.
A lot of prisoners anticipated death and probably welcomed it when it finally came.
Though there is a graveyard located on the island to this day, most of the prisoners
were not buried here.
Due to its hazardous rocks and powerful ocean currents surrounding the island, safe access
was only possible using a cable car, which crossed the 60-foot-wide channel between Devil’s
Island and the main island, Ile Royale.
Though on every prisoner’s mind, escape was very difficult to achieve, some might
even say impossible!
The rough landscape was its own challenge with sharp rocks and piranha infested rivers,
and sharks also posed as a serious threat.
These killer monsters circled the island constantly, eagerly waiting to feast on the prisoners.
They were even said to respond to the ring of a bell like trained dogs whenever it was
time to dispose of the corpses.
The bodies of dead convicts were on the menu, loaded into wheelbarrows and dumped into the
ocean.
The piranha’s were basically handed a free meal on a silver platter.
Many who tried to escape also perished in the water.
One well-known prisoner to be brought to Devil’s island was a man named Captain Alfred Dreyfus.
Born in 1859, this French army officer was the son of a wealthy Jewish family.
He was accused of selling military secrets to the Germans in 1894 and was put on trial
for treason.
He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment and arrived at Devil’s Island on April 13,
1895.
His case, however, initiated a 12-year controversy known as The Dreyfus Affair, which made a
lasting impact on the political and social history of the French Third Republic.
During this time, the French press was highly anti-semitic and the evidence that had been
used against him was largely fabricated.
Dreyfus reportedly cried out, giving a passionate plea.
He said, “I swear that I am innocent.
I remain worthy of serving in the Army.
Long live France!
Long live the Army!” but it made no difference.
Despite having plead his innocence, public opinion welcomed the verdict and wanted him
to be sentenced.
Dreyfus was used as symbolism for anti-semitic propaganda, spreading popular opinion about
the supposed disloyalty of French Jews.
Not everyone was convinced, however, and doubt over Dreyfus’s guilt spread like wildfire.
The case sparked widespread public attention and split France apart into two opposing groups,
those who were for his guilty sentence and those who were opposed to it.
Dreyfus was eventually pardoned and released once it was realized that he was unjustly
condemned, but not before spending over 4 long, brutal years on Devil’s Island.
Considering that more than 40% of prisoners did not survive their first year on the island
and few lived to see their release date, Dreyfus was very lucky.
He was released on June 5, 1899.
He had written a journal, detailing his captivity in more than 1,000 letters.
So how about those who managed to escape from Devil’s Island prison?
There are very few who succeeded, one allegedly being Clement Duval in 1901.
He was an anarchist who fled to New York City and wrote a book about his imprisonment called
Revolte.
Another escapee was a man named Rene Belbenoit who escaped by helping a film company.
He earned $100 which he used to bring a Chinese merchant boat to pick him up.
When the boat arrived, he hid in it and sailed away.
He spent months recovering with a native tribe off the mainland, making his way on foot through
South America.
He walked through central America, up to Mexico before finally entering into the United States.
Now that’s quite a hike!
Belbenoit published two books called Hell on Trial and Dry Guillotine: fifteen years
Among the Living Dead, which spread awareness about what went on in the penal colony.
There must have been something about the island that drove successful escapees into authorship.
Why else would they want to recount their experiences by writing books about it?
Rene Belbenoit made a mistake by traveling back to his home country of France to argue
his case.
Upon his arrival, he was immediately captured and returned to the colony to be imprisoned
once again.
He was eventually released though and went on to live a free life in California where
he worked as a technical advisor for Warner Brothers during the making of the 1944 film,
Passage to Marseille.
He also founded Rene’s Ranch Store in Lucerne Valley and later obtained legal U.S. citizenship
in 1956.
Perhaps the most popular and infamous escape from Devil’s Island was done by Henri Charrière
and Sylvain.
Born in 1906, Henri Charrière was framed for murder and transported to the prison in
1930 from France.
He was otherwise known as “Papillon,” the French word for “butterfly.”
He earned his name due to a butterfly tattoo on his chest.
During his escape, he leaped from a cliff on the island into the sea with his companion,
Sylvain, using two sacks filled with coconuts as lifebuoys.
It took the pair 3 days to drift to the mainland and they somehow managed to avoid being eaten
by sharks.
Sylvain died shortly after reaching the shore, supposedly due to getting caught in quicksand.
It must have been really aggravating for Sylvain to make it all the way across shark infested
waters for 3 days just to die this way.
Henri, on the other hand, was caught and thrown into another prison, the Bagne at El Dorado,
but was soon released to live a free life in Venezuela from there.
After his ordeal was over, Henri wrote the book, Papillon, which detailed his experiences.
French authorities attempted to discredit him, denying his claim that he had escaped
from Devil’s Island.
They even went so far as to say that Henri was never sentenced there to begin with.
Critics go on to say that Henri should have admitted that his book was based on fiction.
We’d be curious to know whether you believe Papillon is based on fabricated accounts of
events, or if French authorities were just trying to cover it up.
It seems pretty suspicious, to say the least, especially since many aspects of the story
bear more than a few similarities to a memoir by another Devil’s Island prisoner, called
Dry Guillotine, which had been written thirty years before Papillon.
Nevertheless, Henri’s Papillon name continued to live on in infamy upon his death in 1973.
To this day, the name, “Papillon,” can be found carved in the floor of cell 47 on
Devil’s Island.
There were even movie adaptations made from his story.
If you’re looking for something to watch tonight, there are two different versions
of the film to choose from.
We went ahead and did the research for you to make your life a little easier.
The ratings on Rotten Tomatoes give an 83% for the 1973 version of the movie Papillon,
starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.
A poorer score of 52% was given for the recent 2017 version of the film.
You’re welcome!
Though the transportation of prisoners to the French penal colony was abolished in 1938,
the last of the prisoners continued to remain on Devil’s Island for much longer than that.
The closure of the facility was delayed upon the outbreak of World War II.
Starting in 1946, French penal colonies everywhere were gradually being terminated one by one.
Devil’s Island, however, was the last to shut its doors in 1953.
For the most part, it was largely forgotten by the rest of the world.
Today, however, Devil’s Island is a popular tourist destination because of its dark past
and the fame it acquired from the books and film adaptations of Papillon’s story.
There is a sort of twisted irony in the fact that so many prisoners could not flee the
island in the past, but, now, you can’t get on the island even if you wanted to.
This is because it is closed to the public.
Though you cannot actually step foot on the island itself, however, you can view it offshore
from a charter boat.
Many also take helicopters over it just to sneak an aerial peek at the ruins.
The other two islands in the group of the three Salvation islands are open for access
to the public and contain some of the original buildings restored as museums.
So, what’s the appeal of visiting exactly?
This may be, in large part, due to the movies.
Or, perhaps, some people have a ghoulish sense of curiosity for the atrocities that went
on there.
Who knows?
Like with any story involving a place with a dark past, there are some who claim that
Devil’s Island is haunted.
Visitors have said they’ve seen ghosts of prisoners everywhere in the crumbling ruins.
If we could ask, our question for the ghosts would be, “if you died wanting to escape
the island in life, why spend all your time there after death?”
Perhaps it is a form of purgatory for those lost spirits who still can’t find their
way to freedom.
What do you think?
Is Devil’s Island haunted?
Would you ever want to visit there as a tourist?
Have you seen any of the two Papillon movies we mentioned and did you like them?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video What Happens In The H Unit At Federal Supermax
Prison!
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.
See you next time!