In the shadow of the "bagne". Confinement of Kanak and labour in colonial New Caledonia
Résumé
French Colonial New Caledonia had an heavy experience of prison from the nineteenth century to the mid twentyth century. Well known is the history of the convict system which started in 1863 in this Pacific island as Guyana was considered a too deadly destination. But transportation was suspended in New Caledonia in 1897 and Guyana fully reopened to French convicts for more than 60 years. Nevertheless, in New Caledonia, the « system » was long to die leaving behind many convicts and ex convicts forced to finish their live in the island, many carceral buildings and a harsh legacy. Less know is the developement and the extent of a specific carceral regime organised in the shadow of the « bagne » for « natives » or indentured labor within the « indigénat régime » and its extensions. The paper will try to document the logics and practices of internment and
prison for natives and indentured labour which went on until the Second World War. It will try to recover through the archives the traces and the weight of the a prison’s past on colonised people today largely forgotten.