du Salut, free of mosquitoes due to constant winds, to recover before being repatriated to Metropolitan France. Hence the name, "Salvation Islands." Previously they had been known as the �les du Diable ("Devil's Islands"), and one of the islands retains the name to this day.
The failure of the Expedition only served to discourage settling in Guiana. The colony earned the nickname Enfer Vert ("Green Hell"), which it is still trying to shake. No other project of mass colonization was undertaken, and the population of Whites was always drastically lower than that of the slaves. The population of the colony, of all races, did not rise above 20,000 until the gold rush (starting in 1855), the second abolition of slavery in 1848 and the founding of the prisons.
The Prisons
Kourou was formerly the home of the "Kourou Prison" which was one of the main prisons in French Guiana, and which was also a part of the notorious Devil's Island Prison System. The Kourou Prison was dedicated mostly to agriculture.
In 1852 the three main islands off of Kourou's coast, the Salut island group (which included Devil's Island) also became prisons. These island prisons held mostly political prisoners as well as some of France's toughest criminals. The first prisoners arrived in 1862.
In 1938, a law was passed prohibiting the transport of any new prisoners from France to French Guyana. In 1946 eight years later, the Kourou Prison was finally shut down, while some prisoners were kept in other Guyanese prisons until as late as 1953.
After the closing of the prison, most of the prison buildings were demolished to make room for the H�tel des Roches, but some vestiges of that period remain. One notable remnant of the prison is the Dreyfus Tower, which stands where the river meets the ocean. This tower was used in pre-radio days to communicate with the islands via Semaphore. Other prison ruins which remain are the prison bakery (which is now on
