Deep into the icy waters of the
Atlantic
Somewhere around the Cape of
Storms
Encaged by rocky beaches all around
Assaulted by piercing winds from the
Benguala
Like an abandoned ship
Lies the Island of the Damned.
- former prisoner Tokyo Sexwale
Geography
Robben Island, a bean-shaped plateau of a submerged mountain range connected to the mainland at Blouberg, is situated in Table Bay with superb views of Cape Town 9km away. At 574 hectares it is the largest of South Africa’s 20 islands, and one of the flattest with a high point of only 30 metres above sea level at Minto Hill. Atop this mound is the oldest lighthouse in the southern hemisphere, warning ships entering the bay of the hazards of a treacherous, rocky shore line. Even so, at least 22 boats have run aground off the island, including a Taiwanese trawler, whose rusting hulk lies in the shallows. The defences of this jagged coast are further bolstered by strong, swirling currents and cold, windy weather more severe than that experienced on the nearby mainland. It is the perfect place for cruel banishment.
Ecology
Robben Island takes its name from the Dutch word for seals, ‘robben’, which are found in large numbers along the coastline. This, in turn, attracts sharks, including great whites, to these environmentally protected waters that are regarded by many as among the most pristine in the world. Over 70 species of birds have been recorded here, among which are a rare partridge and African penguins. There are significant numbers of antelope and reptiles, most of which were introduced by humans.
History
The first recorded landing on the island was in 1498 when Vasco da Gama’s support fleet took temporary refuge in its waters. Within 5 years the Portuguese had established a refreshment station here rather than on the mainland for fear of the indigenous Khoikhoi; a practice continued by the Dutch when they took occupation in 1652. Its situation also made it ideal as a place of quarantine and during much of the British occupation it was used as a hospital for the ‘chronic sick’, ‘lunatics’ and ‘lepers’, who could never return to the mainland after passing through the ‘gate of tears’. During World War II it was perfectly located to defend Cape Town and act asa refuelling station for convoys in the southern oceans.
Early History of Banishment
But it is as a place of banishment and exile that Robben Island is notorious. Long before the arrival of the Dutch at the Cape, it was used as a place to offload miscreant sailors, and was considered by the British as a penal colony before they decided on Australia. The Dutch were the first to use the island as a place of exile for political prisoners when they sent Khoikhoi leader Autshumato and two of his men from the mainland in 1658. They were followed over the next century-and-a-half by a procession of Muslim activists fighting the colonisation of the East by Holland. Among these was Islamic priest Sayed Abduraman Maturu of Jafet, whose mosque-like tomb on the island is one of 5 kramats in the Western Cape. The British, after taking permanent occupation at the beginning of the nineteenth century, continued this tradition by banishing troublesome traditional leaders opposing settler incursion into the interior. Among these were Makana who attacked Grahamstown on the Eastern Frontier in 1819 and Langalibalele who led the amaHlubi Uprising of 1873.
The Political Prison
The apartheid government adapted Robben Island to its own purposes in 1960, and after the banning of the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) decided to create a place of detention there for political prisoners in the newly constructed maximum security section completed in 1963. Among the first to be incarcerated here were nearly 1000 members of the PAC, who were followed in 1964 by the leadership of the ANC, including Nelson Mandela, at the completion of the Rivonia Trial. ‘We landed at an airstrip on one end of the island,’ wrote Mandela in Long Walk to Freedom. ‘It was a grim, overcast day, and when I stepped out of the plane, the cold winter wind whipped through our thin prison uniforms. We were met by guards with automatic weapons.’ These prisoners, and those who came afterwards, were subject to hard labour, psychological persecution and brutality. But few were broken and the epic of their experience is today symbolic of the triumph of ordinary people over an extraordinary crime against humanity.
Robben Island Post-apartheid
The last political prisoners left Robben Island in 1991. In 1996 the island was declared a National Monument by South Africa’s first democratically elected government, and became a World Heritage Site 3 years later. ‘Robben Island stands out for its symbolic value, because of its association with human suffering,’ said Berndt von Droste, director of UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre. ‘But it also stands for hope, for reconciliation and the new South Africa, which is hope for humanity as a whole.’
Getting There
Robben Island is now a living museum and tours leave from the Nelson Mandela Gateway at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town. These include a boat trip across Table Bay, a visit to the maximum security section and a 45-minute bus tour of the island.
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