The Aluku are a Bushinengue ethnic group living mainly on the riverbank in Maripasoula in southwest French Guiana.

The Aluku are an ethnic group in French Guiana whose people are descended from African slaves who escaped in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries from the Dutch plantations in what is now known as Suriname.

[3] Intermarrying with Native Americans, toward the end of the eighteenth century, they initially settled east of the Cottica River in what is nowadays the Marowijne District in Suriname.

[5] In 1760, the Ndyuka people who lived nearby, signed a peace treaty with the colonists offering them territorial autonomy.

[5] Boni used guerilla tactics against the colonists, and kept retreating into the heavily guarded Fort Boekoe located in a swamp.

[10] In 1789,[10] the neighbouring Ndyuka joined forces with the colonists,[5][7] and by 1791 Lieutenant colonel Beutler had chased the remaining Aluku from Suriname into French Guiana.

[14] In 1836, the Navy chemist Le Prieux, who was on an expedition to the southern border of French Guiana, arrived at the Aluku.

This turn of events, upset the Surinamese government who asked Gongo to stand down his army, and that they would contact the French Governor.

[15] On 7 July 1841, a delegation of 12 people was sent to the French Governor to ask permission to settle on the Oyapock River,[12] however 11 including granman Gongo were killed.

[16] Therefore, attempts at diplomacy were abandoned, and part of the tribe settled on the Lawa River where they founded the villages Pobiansi,[12] Assissi, Puumofu and Kormontibo.

[17] In 1860, the Ndyuka, on the centennial of their autonomy, signed a peace treaty with the Aluku in Albina, and allowed them to settle in Abouna Sounga.

[3] The main settlements are in the county of Maripasoula, consisting of: A large part of the Aluku population resides in the urban areas of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, Cayenne, Matoury, and Kourou in French Guiana.

According to Bernard Delpech, the Aluku have undergone "destabilization of the basic traditional material, cultural transformation, altering the rules of collective life".

[32] The main god for the Aluku is Odun, Four Pantheons, mystical spirits, are distinguished which play an integral part in everyday life.