Is it better to leave some places uninhabited? Columbus labeled the place the land of pariahs and moved on. Perhaps France would have been wise to do the same. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Todays stamp is over 70 years old. It shows an African man relaxing in a hammock. By then the plantations and slavery were gone and even the notorious prison was winding down. What was left. Cayenne, the capital and central settlement stresses the motto that “work brings wealth”. It hasn’t so far though and maybe relaxing in the hammock and collecting subsidies is more attractive anyway.
Todays stamp is issue A23, a 10 Centimes issued by the overseas French department of Guiana on June 2nd 1947. This 17 stamp issue in various denominations was the last stamp issue of Guiana as a French colony. However colony status actually ended the year before. The stamps were probably already in process and went ahead. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 30 cents mint.
Columbus spotted Guiana on his third voyage. The Caribe Indians he found there were not friendly and he labeled the place the land of pariahs and moved on. Europeans followed but perhaps they wish they had also moved on. A settlement was started by the French at Cayenne and passed through Dutch and British hands before returning to the French. It was the last French territory on the mainland of the Western Hemisphere. As such several thousand French colonists were sent from France. They had hoped to strike gold and quick wealth but what they found were hostile Indians, harsh weather and tropical diseases. After three years, 90 percent were dead and the rest waited to be rescued from an offshore island. The importance of Empire prevailed and the French gave it another shot. Sugar cane plantations were started and large numbers of African slaves from Guinee were brought in to work them. The end of slavery in 1847 saw the now former slaves disappear into the bush, abandoning the plantations and forming communities resembling the Africa left behind. Several shiploads of Indians, Malays, and Chinese were brought in to work the plantations but most just became merchants in Cayenne and the plantations ended.
A farm provided an interesting legal case for France. A freed African slave women named Suzanne Amomba Paille married a white French soldier. They remained childless but over time built a large farm and a home in the town and over 60 slaves. When her husband died, Suzanne inherited the substantial estate. She was elderly and illiterate and was beset by hucksters and marriage proposals. The colonial Authority used her case to ban interracial marriage and appointed a custodian of her assets. She appealed demanding that her wishes be followed. She wanted to give the farm, city house and slaves to an educational charity who would then allow her to live in the city house for the rest of her years. The court sided with her and today a street in Cayenne is named for her.
Devils Island became the next draw but as a penal colony. In addition to political prisoners the French sent anyone convicted of thievery 4 times to prison exile on Devil’s Island. It was only to be a six month sentence after which they were freed in the colony. They were stuck there and most quickly died from tropical disease and poverty. The prison closed in 1951 except for one wing that contained prisoners too crazy to release. The book and movie “Papillion” made Devil’s Island famous.
The colony in 1946 became an overseas department of France. They are therefore citizens of France and Euroland whatever their ethnic background. It is the only Euroland territory in the Western Hemisphere. A site in Guiana was chosen for the European space center due to it’s remoteness and proximity to the equator. This is the largest part of the local economy after French subsidies. In 2011, Guiana voted against autonomy from France.
Well my drink is empty and I will open the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.