Kourou

Kourou lies near the mouth of the Kourou River on the Guiana coast. A Jesuit mission was founded there in the early eighteenth century, gathering Indigenous converts in a settlement close to the river. After the Jesuits left in 1762, the mission stood largely abandoned.

The French government chose Kourou for an ambitious colonisation project in 1763, following the loss of much of its North American empire. Thousands of European migrants arrived in conditions for which the expedition was poorly prepared, despite the grand promises made to them in Europe. Disease and shortages caused heavy mortality, and many survivors left the settlement and returned across the Atlantic. A map by the engineer François-Simon Mentelle records the mission and its surroundings at the outset of the venture.