Empire and Underworld: Captivity in French Guiana

In the century after the French Revolution, the South American outpost of Guiana became a depository for exiles—outcasts of the new French citizenry—and an experimental space for the exercise of new kinds of power and violence against marginal groups. Miranda Spieler chronicles the encounter between colonial officials, planters, and others, ranging from deported political enemies to convicts, ex—convicts, vagabonds, freed slaves, non—European immigrants, and Maroons (descendants of fugitive...