George John Seaton
George John Seaton (born December 3, 1900, in France), was an English man who was sentenced to imprisonment on Devil's Island in French Guiana.
His autobiography, published in the 1950s, details his experiences as a prisoner and freed man in French Guiana and was widely reviewed in both Britain and the United States.
The establishment of Devil's Island as a penal colony goes back to France's Napoleonic Era, during which administrators turned to extreme punishment under maritime jurisdiction for criminals convicted of petty crimes such as theft and desertion.
[4] Disease, rampant heat and humidity, overpopulated living, and lack of cleanliness caused high death rates amongst the prisoners.
[7] Although Seaton had agreed to get paid, Belone told him he could work for free, or he would tell Devil's Island authorities he was causing issues, and his imprisonment would be reinstated.
[7] Once having escaped imprisonment and servitude, Seaton managed to publish his autobiography in 1951, which appeared as Isle of the Damned in the United States and as Scars Are My Passport in Britain.
[8][9] Both editions contain a foreword by Cyril Kersh, an English reporter with whom Seaton established contact from French Guiana and who assisted him in writing up his experiences.
The resulting book, which retells Seaton's life in the French penal colony from his own perspective, was heralded as "incredible"[11] and a "must-be-read"[12] that was "not to be missed"[13] across the Anglophone sphere.
Reviews highlighted the inhumanity of the French overseas prison system, going as far as to compare the operations on Devil's Island to Nazi concentration camps.
[14][15] In light of the nascent civil rights movement in the United States, Seaton's interactions with Black prison guards and locals in particular captured the interest of African Americans.
[1] Upon the publication of his autobiography, Jet Magazine highlighted Seaton's appreciation for the restrained nature of Black prison guards[16] and prominently included him in a feature on "white slaves" in the French overseas territory.
O'Reilly's colleagues were Reverend Joesph Deery, a Roman Catholic priest, T. G. O'Sullivan, a district justice, John J. Pigott, a professor at St. Patrick's Training College, and C.J.
[citation needed] More recently, Seaton's life as told through his autobiography has served as a reliable primary source for historians and other social scientists, especially given that first-hand accounts from French Guiana are generally sparse and some, such as fellow prisoner Henri Charrière's, are considered largely falsified.
