The significance of the Island can be described as follows:
"While we will not forget the brutality of Apartheid, we will not want Robben Island to be a monument to our hardship and suffering. We would want it to be a triumph of the human spirit against the forces of evil. A triumph of wisdom and largeness of spirit against small minds and pettiness; a triumph of courage and determination over human frailty and weakness, a triumph of the new South Africa over the old..." -- A. Kathrada

As a site of living heritage and a national and international symbol of political imprisonment, Robben Island holds strong symbolic associations for humanity. The site is a universal symbol of hope, solidarity and transformation, a site of spiritual reflection, healing and pilgrimage. As such, it offers a world struggling under social injustices and intolerance, an example of the indomitable nature of the human spirit.



Banishment, forced labour, imprisonment, isolation, and resistance to these civil rights infringements, are inscribed on the history of Robben Island over more than three centuries. Its cultural and natural landscapes, its views and vistas and the memories it holds, bear eloquent testimony to the physical and psychological hardships endured by those held on the Island during centuries of colonialism and apartheid.

Yet it is the resilience, struggles and fighting spirit of the people of South Africa - interwoven with those of Africa and the world - and the triumph of liberation and democracy, that constitute Robben Island's universal significance.

Robben Island has come to symbolise, not only for South Africa, or even the African continent, but also the entire world, the resilience and the eventual triumph of humanity over enormous hardship and adversity. The Island represents a place of trauma and suffering by many, and as such it is a catalyst for healing. The existing quarries, prisons, WW2 gun emplacements, infirmaries and the remnants of the demolished leprosaria and seventeenth century gardens are evidence of Robben Island's long history of human habitation through difficult periods and great challenges.

The spatial relationships between the precincts - historically dividing the sick from the healthy, men from women, black from white, prisoners from free - provide a tangible reference point to ideologies of separation and division, bringing out what can be described as the worst in humans.

Alien fauna and flora introduced over time form part of the complex construction of the Island as a cultural landscape of extraction and destruction; as well as construction.

Human graves, both marked and unmarked, create a vast, largely uncharted historic layer below the surface. These elements, collectively, bear testimony to Robben Island's layered history and multiple voices. The layered history further mirrors, in microcosm, the history of colonialism and apartheid in southern Africa, and the struggle against the same.

Robben Island is described as a 'university of life' through which strategies for a future society based on tolerance; respect and non-racialism were nurtured and implemented. The emphasis on education, on debate and on lifelong learning is testimony to the fight for justice and education and is key to Robben Island's role as a heritage site and its human rights discourse. It demonstrates the role of education in the championing of human rights and the creation of a just society. It creates a space of contestation and dialogue that is the ingredient of a democratic society.

Robben Island's tangible and intangible resources, its oral histories, documentary evidence, collections, structures, artifacts and landscapes hold the potential to provide a complex, rich interpretation of this world heritage site, its interconnections with other sites and its associated values.

In the words of ex-political prisoner Walter Sisulu:
Robben Island's notorious history as a place to which so-called undesirables of our society were banished should be turned around into a source of enlightenment and education on the dangers of myopic philosophies, social and economic practices whose primary and sole objective is the oppression of one group over another ...

While the universal significance of Robben Island can be summarised as above, it is also recognized that the natural environment provides the context in which the cultural dimensions evolved. Robben Island is itself environmentally a component of the Cape Floristic Region, and has been separately listed as part of the Cape Floral Region Protected Areas World Heritage Site.

THE HISTORY OF ROBBEN ISLAND

INTRODUCTION
Different authorities in different periods used Robben Island for different purposes. Many of the authorities used the Island to banish, isolate and imprison people. Many of the people resisted their ill-treatment in similar ways. In this chapter we discuss how the themes of repression and
resistance repeat themselves throughout the layered history of Robben Island.

PRE-COLONIAL ERA
An ancient mountain Robben Island was originally part of the mainland. It is really the peak of an ancient mountain, most of which is now underwater. Twelve times over the last 700 000 years, rising and falling sea levels changed the shape of this peak. The most recent change happened after the last Ice Age, about 12 000 years ago. At this time the sea level rose and created a channel between the Island
and the mainland.

Archaeological findings
Archaeologists have found three pre-colonial archaeological sites on Robben Island. Two of thesesites are close to each other to the west of the MSP, and contain stone tools. The third site is below ground level and is in the northeastern area of the Island. It contains fossilised mammal
bones of Eland and Rhebok, which are now extinct.

First recorded landings on the Island
The first records of ships coming to Robben Island are from 1498, when Portuguese sailors stayed overnight in a cave. Other records show that there were thousands of seals, penguins and tortoises on the Island. From 1503 sailors killed and ate many of these animals. This began Robben Island’s role as a source of fresh food for sailors on their way to the East Indies, or coming back from the East Indies. In the 1600s sailors left sheep to fatten on the Island’s grass and shrubs. At this time people usually stayed on the Island for short periods only.

COLONIAL ERA
Vereenigde Oost-Indishe Compagnie (VOC) (1652–1795) In 1652 the Dutch set up a permanent settlement at the Cape. They used the Island as a place to grow vegetables and to keep sheep, rabbits and cattle to supply to passing ships. As people removed existing plants and animals from the Island and brought in new plants and animals, the landscape of Robben Island changed. Many of the new plants and animals are still part of the Island’s cultural landscape as we know it today.

Robben Island as a place of imprisonment
Within a few years the Dutch found a new role for Robben Island. They used it to imprison opponents of the Dutch East India Company or Vereenigde Oost-Indishe Compagnie (VOC) from both the Cape and the East Indies. The earliest recorded prisoners were slaves and POWs brought from the East Indies in 1657. In 1658 they were joined by the earliest indigenous (local) prisoners – Autshumato, a leader of the Khoi, and three other prisoners. Common law prisoners were also imprisoned on the Island. They were forced to cut stone and mine lime. This was then used to build some of the early buildings in the Cape. Later, prisoners also burnt shells for lime, lit the signal fires, and looked after the company’s sheep. After 1722 the VOC started fighting for control of the East Indies and they exiled more and more Muslim resistance leaders to Robben Island. These leaders were not forced to do hard labour and had certain privileges, although the general Muslim prisoners were forced to work.

Muslim influence
The imprisonment of Muslim leaders left a lasting mark on Robben Island, on the people of the
Cape and of South Africa. We can still see evidence of these leaders in:
• Some of the unmarked graves on Robben Island;
• The kramat that was built as a symbol of the burial place of Pangerau Chakra Deningrat, the
Asian Prince of Madura; and
• The first text on Islamic jurisprudence which was written by Tuan Guru, a prince from Tidore
in the Ternate Islands. He was imprisoned on Robben Island from 1780 to 1793.

British occupation (1795 –1802; 1806 –1910)
The British took occupation of the Cape from the Dutch in 1795. For most of the nineteenth century they continued to banish local leaders, who opposed their rule, to Robben Island. In the beginning these leaders came from the eastern and northern regions of the Cape Colony, where Dutch cattle farmers had trekked in the later years of Dutch rule. They first clashed with the Khoikhoi and San inhabitants, and later with the Xhosa in the Zuurveld who were also cattle farmers. These violent clashes resulted in nine wars (wars of dispossession) that continued for more than 100 years. The last annexation of land was in 1879 when the British seized Pondoland on the East Coast. At this time the British governed land that stretched over 1 000 km from the Cape, to the southern border of Natal.

One hundred years of war
From 1806 to 1878, Dutch and British settlers seized and occupied more and more land. They
used Robben Island to banish and imprison leaders of the Khoi, and later the Hlubi. These leaders were separated from the Village. They built huts and lived in their traditional style to the north of the bay.

Imprisonment of Khoi and Xhosa leaders
The clashes between the settlers and the local peoples led to the imprisonment on Robben Island
of the following leaders:
• In 1809, David Stuurman, a Khoi leader;
• In 1819, Makhanda, a Xhosa leader, and a number of his followers;
• In the 1850s, a group of Xhosa chiefs, including Maqoma, Fadana and Stokwe;
• In 1877 – 78, fourteen Xhosa leaders, including the sons of Maqoma and Sandile. They were
separated from other prisoners in a wooden hut near Murray’s Bay.

Imprisonment of Korana and Hlubi leaders
Northwest of the Cape Colony there were white farmers who lived south of the Orange River. These farmers clashed with the Korana people as they took away grazing land and sources of water for their livestock. Although the Korana resisted, by 1870 the colonialists had banished several of their important chiefs to Robben Island, including Jan Kivido, Piet Rooy and Carel Ruiters.

Between 1880 and 1884 the colonialists pardoned and released some of the indigenous leaders. They transferred others to the Breakwater Prison at Table Bay Harbour where they worked in the docks.




Facts about Robben Island Museum

Geographical
• Robben Island is a low-lying outcrop situated at entrance to Table Bay and Cape Town, 9.678 kilometres north of Green Point on the mainland. Covering an area of some 518 hectares, it measures roughly 3.57 km from north to south.
• The Island’s highest point is 24 metres above sea-level, and is known as Minto's Hill, named after a nineteenth-century Surgeon- Superintendent of the General Infirmary.
• The climate is Mediterranean, as in nearby Cape Town.

Historical
• The first recorded landing by foreigners was in 1498 when sailors from Vasco da Gama’s fleet landed here.
• Robben Island became a place of banishment, exile, isolation and imprisonment after the Dutch settled in the Cape in 1652.
• Many African leaders were imprisoned on the Island dating back to the Khoikhoi leader, Autshumato, and later the Xhosa chief, Makana.
• Autshumato was the first political prisoner on the island, imprisoned by the Dutch in 1658, and also the first to escape, in 1659.
• From 1846 to 1931 the Island was used as a place of isolation for people with leprosy.
• The Robben Island lighthouse was built during 1863-1864 and installed on 1 January 1865.
• The Church of the Good Shepherd was designed by Sir Herbert Baker and built in 1895, using stone from the Van Riebeeck stone quarry.
• The Church of the Good Shepherd is the only remaining building of the leprosaria as the others were all burnt down.
• There are two large graveyards, the staff cemetery in “Irish Town” and the leprosarium graveyard comprising the graves of patients and people with leprosy.
• Most of the buildings and structures date back to World War II, including 9.2” guns, searchlight housings, barracks and tunnels linking a number of the emplacements.
• After WWII the Island became a naval training base until 1959, and in 1961 it was officially handed over to the prison services.
• The first wave of modern era political prisoners arrived in 1962.
• The Maximum Security Prison was built between 1963 to 1964 by both common law and political prisoners.
• Modern political prisoners include the first democratic state president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, the founder of PAC (Pan African Congress), Robert Sobukwe, and many more.
• From 1963 to 1969 Robert Sobukwe was the only prisoner detained under the “Sobukwe Clause”.
• The last political prisoners were released in 1991 and some ex-political prisoners are now employed as tour guides.
• The last common law prisoner left the Island in 1996.
• The Island was opened to the public on January 1, 1997 and officially launched as a Museum on 24 September1997 by former State President, Nelson Mandela.
• Robben Island Museum is a National Museum, National Heritage Site, and in 1999 it gained recognition from UNESCO as a
World Heritage Site.

Wildlife
• The Island is host to a substantial breeding colony of African penguins.
• A significant population of African Black Oyster Catchers live and breed on the Island.
• 149 Bird species have been recorded on Robben Island ranging from seabirds, waterbirds and terrestrial birds, including some that migrate from as far as Siberia.
• There are 23 mammal species that have been recorded including small herds of bontebok, springbok, steenbok, fallow deer and eland.
• A number of reptiles and amphibians including lizards, geckos, mole snakes and three species of tortoise can also be found.

General
• The Museum is open 364 days of the year only closes on May 1, Workers’ Day.
• There are educational programmes for schools, youths and adults run by the Museum’s Education Department.
• The historical vessels which are now used to run daily tours were used to transport warders and their families, and also the prisoners and their visitors.
• Some staff members stay with their families, approximately 150 people, on the island and there are facilities including a medical clinic, post office, village shop and primary school.
• Robben Island Museum uses some of its buildings as conference venues namely the Guest House, the John Craig Hall, the Multi-Purpose Learners’ Centre and Houses 40, 47 and 48.
• Firearms are not allowed on the island.
• There are four visible shipwrecks on the island.
• The word ‘robbe’ is a Dutch word for ‘seal’, therefore Robben Island means Seal Island.
• Telephone booking is available for general tours for credit card holders only.
• For any other tours, people can contact the numbers below depending on the type of visit that is required.

General enquiries
Tel: (021) 413 4220/01 or (021) 409 5169
Fax: (021) 4183082
Email: [email protected] or [email protected]

General bookings
Tel: (021) 413 4200
Fax: (021) 419 1057
Email: [email protected]