Salvation Islands

The Salvation Islands (French: Îles du Salut, so called because the missionaries went there to escape plague on the mainland), sometimes mistakenly[citation needed] called the Safety Islands, are a group of small islands of volcanic[citation needed] origin about 11 kilometres (6 nautical miles) off the coast of French Guiana, 14 kilometres (7+1⁄2 nautical miles) north of Kourou, in the Atlantic Ocean.

Île Royale was the reception centre for the general population of the penal colony; they were housed in moderate freedom due to the difficulty of escape from the island.

Saint-Joseph Island was the Reclusion, where inmates were sent to be punished by solitary confinement in silence and darkness for escapes or offences committed in the penal colony.

In the 19th century, the most famous such prisoner was Captain Alfred Dreyfus, held there from 1895 to 1899 after his conviction in mainland France for treason.

Joseph Conrad's short story An Anarchist (1906) is largely set in Salvation Islands.