Historical Organization
French Guiana colonial administration
French Guiana colonial administration
Details
Organization Timeline
Premier leaves enslavement in Cayenne
📅 22 September 1827A colonial notice records Premier, described in the source as Creole and associated with Égérie, leaving Cayenne on 22 September 1827. The archive preserves an enslaver-facing report, not Premier’s...
Lindor, Germinal, and Glorieux flee together from Macouria
đź“… 23 September 1827The notice reports that Lindor, Germinal, and Glorieux left the Macouria habitation of Marchal together on 23 September 1827. Their shared flight is evidence of collective action, though the...
Faustin leaves Cayenne
đź“… 25 September 1827The archive transcription records Faustin leaving Cayenne on 25 September 1827. The notice labels him with a colonial-origin category and says he spoke Portuguese; those labels come from the...
Jean-Noël, a carpenter, leaves Cayenne
📅 26 September 1827A notice names Jean-Noël, a Creole carpenter, as having left Cayenne on 26 September 1827. The craft detail indicates skilled work in the enslaved population; the notice itself chiefly served colonial...
CĂ©salpin leaves the Moulin-Ă -Vent habitation
📅 6 October 1827The colonial notice records Césalpin leaving the Moulin-à -Vent habitation on 6 October 1827. The archive transcription reproduces the owner’s identifying description; this entry instead foregrounds...
Noël leaves Cayenne
📅 7 October 1827Noël is recorded as leaving Cayenne on 7 October 1827. The notice was issued by the colonial administration at the request of an enslaver and includes personal identifying details, illustrating how...
Four people flee the Quartier-Général habitation together
📅 18 October 1827César, Adonis, Vulcain, and La Fortune are named in a notice as having left the Quartier-Général habitation together on 18 October 1827. Their joint flight documents collective resistance; the...
Pornic and Machecoul leave the Charles Couy and Thibault habitation
đź“… 24 October 1827The archive transcription records Pornic and Machecoul leaving the same habitation on 24 October 1827. The original notice classifies them using colonial-era categories; this account avoids treating...
Elisée and Laurent leave La Jeune-Cléomène
📅 17 January 1839Elisée and Laurent are recorded as leaving the La Jeune-Cléomène habitation in Tonnégrande together on 17 January 1839. The notice identifies them through the heirs of Thérèse Pansier, showing how...
Joseph-Poulin leaves the Sautro habitation
📅 19 January 1839A notice records Joseph-Poulin leaving the Sautro habitation in Tour-de-l’Île on 19 January 1839. The archive preserves the departure through the colonial administration’s effort to locate and...
Joseph leaves the Tour-de-l’Île district
📅 23 January 1839The colonial notice lists Joseph, described as Creole, as having left the Tour-de-l’Île district on 23 January 1839. The source names the enslaver but provides no explanation from Joseph, so the...
Thésée leaves Cayenne
📅 23 January 1839The archive records Thésée leaving Cayenne on 23 January 1839. The notice identifies her through the person claiming ownership; recording women’s named acts of flight helps recover their presence in a...
Alexis leaves Cayenne
đź“… 5 February 1839Alexis is recorded as leaving Cayenne on 5 February 1839. A notice published by the colonial administration sought to identify and recapture him; the surviving source is therefore evidence of both...
Maxime leaves La Providence
📅 6 February 1839The notice records Maxime, described by the colonial source as Creole and aged eighteen, leaving La Providence in Tour-de-l’Île on 6 February 1839. His age and the place of departure locate the act...
Chérubin leaves Cayenne
📅 12 February 1839A notice names Chérubin as having left Cayenne on 12 February 1839. It offers no first-person account or motive; the event is included as a documented act of marronnage, not as a complete biography.
Lucile leaves Cayenne
📅 3 March 1842Lucile, approximately 28 years old in the notice, is recorded as leaving Cayenne on 3 March 1842. Her appearance in the archive is mediated by the colonial advertisement and an owner’s claim, but...
Caroline leaves her enslaver’s household
📅 16 March 1842Caroline, identified as 31 in the notice, left her enslaver’s home on 16 March 1842. The report does not specify where she went or what happened next; it documents a decision to leave the immediate...
Coralie leaves Cayenne
📅 19 March 1842The colonial notice records Coralie leaving Cayenne on 19 March 1842. As with other marronnage advertisements, the source’s purpose was administrative identification; reading it against that grain...
François and Gervais leave Mondésir together
📅 14 November 1842François and Gervais left the Mondésir habitation at Macouria together on 14 November 1842. The notice describes one as a field worker and the other as a fisher, showing enslaved labor’s varied...
Achille leaves the colonial river crossing at Kourou
📅 4 June 1844Achille, assigned to the colonial domain’s river crossing at Kourou, left on 4 June 1844 and was reported to have returned on his own on 22 July. The record does not explain his decision to return;...
Emancipation gives freedpeople the right to leave plantation labor and seek livelihoods
đź“… 10 August 1848On 10 August 1848, abolition took legal effect in French Guiana. In the following years, many formerly enslaved people left plantations. Historical research records some establishing small...
Disciplinary workshops institutionalize coerced labor
đź“… 3 July 1852Local order no. 398 establishes prisons and disciplinary workshops for workers sanctioned under the 13 February decree. It allowed those sentenced to perform labor and, in specified circumstances,...
Worker booklet system begins in Cayenne
📅 28 July 1852Order no. 419 defines worker booklets and their delivery in French Guiana. The booklet recorded work engagements and enabled officials to monitor workers’ movements. It was a tool of post-emancipation...
Work obligation and booklet checks extend labor surveillance
đź“… 4 August 1852Order no. 464 organizes work engagements and booklet inspections. It required people aged 14 to 60 without sufficient resources to show regular work, and imposed repeated administrative checks. For...
French Guiana creates a special immigration office
đź“… 30 December 1854A local order creates a special immigration commissioner, part of the administrative apparatus for recruiting and distributing contracted labor. After formerly enslaved people resisted plantation work...
Local order sets rules for Indian and African immigrants
đź“… 10 December 1855Order no. 698 sets local procedures for introducing Indian and African contracted workers, including the assignment of workers to employers and checks on contracts and transport. The same framework...
Sigisbert-CĂ©zard brings the first Indian labor convoy to Guiana
đź“… 9 June 1856The ship Sigisbert-CĂ©zard reaches French Guiana with Indian workers recruited from Pondicherry and Karikal. The surviving memorial register lists 822 people embarked and 801 arrivals. The names and...
RĂ©aumur convoy resumes Indian indenture migration
đź“… 18 October 1860After a four-year gap, the RĂ©aumur arrives with 550 Indian workers embarked and 534 recorded as arriving. The four-year interruption reflected the fragile finances and administration of colonial...
Parmentier convoy carries Indian workers to Guiana
📅 9 July 1861The Parmentier arrives with 533 workers embarked from Pondicherry and Karikal and 514 recorded as arriving. The voyage shows that the 1861 convention’s protections existed alongside continuing...
Nicolas-Poussin convoy reaches French Guiana
đź“… 1 December 1864The Nicolas-Poussin arrives from Pondicherry and Karikal with 277 workers embarked and 275 recorded as arriving. This later convoy shows that the indenture system persisted beyond its first arrivals...
Duguay-Trouin convoy reaches Cayenne
đź“… 10 December 1865The Duguay-Trouin arrives from Pondicherry and Karikal with 412 workers embarked and 400 recorded as arriving. The archive-based chronology notes that officials refused immediate landing and moved the...
Berryer brings the final Indian indenture convoy
đź“… 11 February 1877The Berryer arrives in French Guiana with 306 workers, the final ship in the twenty-convoy migration recorded between 1856 and 1877. More than 8,000 people crossed from India and the Caribbean to work...