Born into slavery in the French colony of Saint-Domingue around 1740, Toussaint Louverture became a free man under the Old Regime.  He nevertheless joined the slave uprising in the colony in 1791, rising to become one of ...

The French Antilles, especially Saint-Domingue, formed an irresistible point of attraction for aspiring European colonists in the 17th and 18th centuries. Migrations relied on various modes of recruitment which underwent ...

Francis Lagrange is probably the best known artist of the penal colonies of Guyana. Like the famed Papillon, he tended to romanticize his life, but he owes his fame above all to his paintings, especially his “Scenes from ...

In Guyana, as in the other colonies of the Americas, the evangelization of communities of Indigenous and formerly enslaved African people followed the development of colonial settlements from the mid-17th century to the m...

The spatial organization of the towns of Basse-Terre and Pointe-à-Pitre corresponds to the needs of colonial enterprise.

During the Revolution and in the nineteenth century,  Guyane’s history as a site of punishment stood in contradiction with the internal history of the colony. 

In 1848, the provisional government abolished slavery but left many questions unanswered, notably those related to the indemnity provided to colonists as well as the fate of newly liberated individuals.