Robben Island
A brief history
Unesco declared Robben Island in the Western Cape a World Heritage Site in 1999. It sits 12 km from Cape Town across St Helena Bay.
Robben Island has been used as prison and a place where people were isolated, banished and exiled to for nearly 400 years. It was also used as a post office. Batolomeu Dias, the Portuguese explorer, discovered the island in 1488 when he anchored his ship in Table Bay. From the 1400’s Portuguese sailors, British and Dutch traders and colonialists used Robben Island as a prison and an outpost.
When Jan van Riebeeck arrived at the Cape in 1652 he had to settle a station where ships that were travelling from Europe to the East Indies could get fresh food and water. Some of the people who stopped at the Cape were afraid to come to shore and were dropped off on Robben Island. There were plenty of seals, tortoises and penguins for hunting.
In 1600 the Dutch government sent kings, princes and religious leaders from the East Indies to Robben Island as prisoners because they did not agree with the Dutch rule in their country. When Britain took over the Cape in the 1700’s they also used the island as a prison. They sent army deserters, murderers, thieves and political prisoners there. In the 1800’s Robben Island changed and became a kind of hospital where the government sent lepers, mentally ill people, people with other diseases and poor people. The Sick people didn’t get any treatment and had to look after each other. It was easy to be classified as mentally ill in those days and the homeless, alcoholics, sick or elderly and prostitutes with sexually transmitted diseases were sent to the island.
In the 1900’s Robben Island changed again and all the 'patients' were sent to hospitals in the Cape. The isand then become a storage facility for guns and other military equipment before World War II and the government built roads, a power station, a new water supply and houses. But in 1961 it turned into a prison again.
During apartheid many black people were kept on Robben Island as political prisoners, the most renowned being Nelson Mandela. The prison was known all over the world for its harsh conditions and when the political prisoners of the apartheid government were released, Robben Island became a symbol of the strength of the human spirit.
Robben Island was declared a World Heritage Site because the buildings on the island are a reminder of its mixed history and the history of South Africa and her long road to freedom and democracy.