France attempts to settle in the area of what is today French Guiana in 1604, but is forced to abandon it in the face of hostility from the Portuguese, who view it as a violation of the Treaty of Tordesillas.

The French occupy eastern Guiana at Cayenne in 1674.

Jean-Charles Pichegru had planned a coup d'état known as the Coup of 18 Fructidor, but he had been arrested and with fourteen others and had been deported to Cayenne, French Guiana in 1797.

He and seven others escape in 1798 and flee to ...

Île du Diable (Devil's Island) is the site of a small prison facility, part of a larger penal system by the same name, which consists of prisons on three islands and three larger prisons on the French Guiana mainland.

This will be operated from 1852 to 1953.

Once French Guiana in established as a penal colony, officials sometimes use convicts to catch butterflies.

The sentences of the convicts are often long, and the prospect of employment very weak, so the convicts catch butterflies to sell in the international market, both for scientific purposes as well as general collecting.

A border dispute between French Guiana and Brazil arises in the late nineteenth century over a vast area of jungle, resulting in the short-lived, pro-French, independent state of Counani in the disputed territory.

There is some fighting among settlers.

The dispute is resolved largely in favor of Brazil by the arbitration of the Swiss government.