French Guiana

French Guiana lies on the north coast of South America, with Suriname to the west and Brazil to the south and east. French occupation began in the early seventeenth century. After brief periods of Dutch, English and Portuguese rule, the territory was confirmed as French in 1817. The colony steadily declined, after a short period of prosperity in the 1850s as a result of the discovery of gold. French Guiana, including the notorious Devil's Island, was used as a penal colony until 1937, and the territory became an Overseas Department of France in 1946. This bibliography, containing some 500 entries, brings together, for the first time, the most important French and English publications concerning French Guiana.