Côn Sơn Island is the largest island of the Côn Đảo archipelago, off the coast of southern Vietnam. The island is also known after itsMalay name as Pulo Condore (pulo as a corruption of pulau, meaning "island"), while its French variant Poulo Condor was well known during the times of French Indochina. Marco Polo mentioned the island in the description of his 1292 voyage from China to India under the name, Sondur and Condur. In Claudius Ptolemy's Geography they are referred to as the Isles of the Satyrs.
In 1702, the British East India Company founded a settlement on the island of Poulo Condor off the south coast of southern Vietnam, and in 1705 the garrison and settlement were destroyed.
In 1787, through the Treaty of Versailles, Nguyễn Ánh (the future Emperor Gia Long) promised to cede Poulo Condor to the French. In exchange Louis XVI promised to help Nguyễn Ánh to regain the throne, by supplying 1,650 troops (1,200 Kaffir troops, 200 artillery men and 250 black soldiers) on four frigates.
In 1861, the French colonial government established a prison on the island to house political prisoners. In 1954, it was turned over to the South Vietnamesegovernment, who continued to use it for the same purpose. Notable prisoners held at Côn Sơn in the 1930s included Phạm Văn Đồng and Lê Ðức Thọ. Not far from the prison is Hang Duong Cemetery, where some of the prisoners were buried.
During the Vietnam War, prisoners who had been held at the prison in the 1960s said they were abused and tortured. In July 1970, two U.S. Congressionalrepresentatives, Augustus Hawkins and William Anderson, visited the prison. They were accompanied by Tom Harkin (then an aide), translator Don Luce, and USAID Office of Public Safety Director Frank Walton. When the delegation arrived at the prison, they departed from the planned tour, guided by a map drawn by a former detainee. The map led to the door of a building, which was opened from the inside by a guard when he heard the people outside the door talking. Inside they found prisoners were being shackled within cramped “tiger cages”. Prisoners began crying out for water when the delegation walked in. They had sores and bruises, and some were mutilated. Harkin took photos of the scene. The photos were published in Life magazine on July 17, 1970.
The prison on Côn Sơn Island was closed in 1975, when North Vietnam (now unified as Vietnam) toppled the South Vietnamese government, in the wake of the withdrawal by the United States and its allies (South Korea, Australia) from the Vietnam War. The facilities were reopened some years later however, to temporary incarcerate boat people captured by local coast guards until the late 80s.
Along with the earlier disclosure of the Mỹ Lai massacre, and the later disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, the revelation of the conditions and purpose of Côn Sơn Island prison led more Americans to believe that supporting the South Vietnamese government was improper, adding to the opposition to the Vietnam War.
Recreations of tiger cages can be seen today at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City