Robben Island Museum is a small island in Table Bay, south of Cape Town, South Africa, located 6.9 kilometres (4.3 miles) west of the Bloubergstrand shore. The Dutch/Afrikaans name Robbeneiland, which translates as Seal(s) Island, is derived from the Dutch word for seals (robben). From the late-seventeenth century until 1996, when apartheid ended, it was fortified and served as a prison. And now the prison is one of the biggest museum in South Africa.
Nelson Mandela, a political leader and lawyer, spent 18 of his 27 years in jail on the island prior to the end of apartheid and the establishment of full, multi-racial democracy. He went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize and was elected President of South Africa in 1994, making him the country’s first black president. He served one term from 1994 to 1999. Furthermore, the majority of the inmates were jailed for political reasons. Since the late 1990s, two other former Robben Island detainees have been elected to the presidency: Kgalema Motlanthe (2008–2009)and Jacob Zuma (2009–2018). Now the island is a South African National Heritage Site as well as a UNESCO World Heritage site serving and hosting thousands of tourists every year.
Robben Island Museum History
This island, located at the entrance to Table Bay, 11 kilometres from Cape Town, was discovered by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488 and was used as a refuelling station by Portuguese navigators for many years, then by English and Dutch. In Dutch, its current name means “seal island.”
The Dutch Cape Colony settlers brought all of their ewes and a few rams to Robben Island in 1654, and the men built a big shed and a shelter. Wild creatures were more protected on the island than they were on the mainland. To meet the settlement’s needs, the settlers also collected seal skins and cooked oil.
Robben Island has been utilised for the detention of political prisoners since the end of the 17th century. Robben Island was first used as a jail by Dutch settlers. In the mid-seventeenth century, Autshumato was most likely the island’s first prisoner. Political leaders imprisoned from other Dutch colonies, particularly the Dutch East Indies, and the leader of the slave ship Meermin mutiny, were among the first permanent residents.
A boat rowed out to meet the British warships after the British Royal Navy captured numerous Dutch East Indiamen during the battle of Saldanha Bay in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War in 1781. The “kings of Ternate and Tidore, and the princes of the respective families” were on board. They had been kept by the Dutch on “Isle Robin” for a long time before being relocated to Saldanha Bay.
The island was used by many leader and in the 1961, the South African government used Robben Island as a jail for political detainees and convicted criminals. The Moturu Kramat was created in 1969 to memorialise Sayed Abdurahman Moturu, the Prince of Madura, and is now a hallowed destination for Muslim pilgrimage on Robben Island. In the mid-1740s, Moturu, one of Cape Town’s early imams, was exiled to the island. In 1754, he died there. Before departing the island, Muslim political prisoners would pay tribute to the shrine.
Former convict Indres Naidoo’s book “Island in Chains” was the first written description of jail life on the island when it was published in 1982.
In 1991, the maximum security jail for political detainees was closed. Five years later, the medium-security jail for criminals was closed.
Robben Island In Recent Time
The island has been a famous tourist attraction since the end of apartheid. Robben Island Museum (RIM) is in charge of the facility, which is run as a living museum. For its significance to South Africa’s political history and the formation of a democratic society, the island was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. Thousands of visitors ride the ferry from Cape Town’s Victoria & Alfred Waterfront to view the island and its former jail every year. Many of the tour guides had previously served as inmates. With the exception of the island church, all land on the island is held by the South African government. Robben Island is a suburb of Cape Town in terms of administration. Weather permitting, it is open all year.
Why is Robben Island A Museum?
The Robben Island is now a museum to conserve and manage the cultural and natural heritage in order to retain the significance and the outstanding universal value of the state.
The island is now a museum, promoting a holistic and inclusive understanding of the island’s multi-layered history and developing responsible and sustainable tourist products and services that provide a unique visitor experience.
One of the main reasons that Robben Island has become a museum is to share, educate, and explain the island’s ideals, experience, and heritage, as well as to ensure that the museum follows best practises for administering a World Heritage Site.
When Was Robben Island Museum Built?
Opening the museum in September 1997, Nelson Mandela said in the colonial and apartheid past, “the museum would forever remind South Africans that today’s unity is a triumph over yesterday’s division and conflict.”
The idea for the Robben Island Museum arose in the early 1990s, when South Africa had gained political independence and was attempting to recreate itself. It was a very symbolic aspect of the nation’s once-in-a-generation rebuilding process.
The island should be created as a centre of memory, learning, and healing, according to the first democratic government.
Robben Island Museum Tour
The museum trip begins with a ferry ride from the Nelson Mandela Gateway at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, where you may see the island’s various displays. Visitors are taken to the maximum security jail, which includes Madiba’s cell, after a 30-minute ferry voyage. The tour of the Robben Island jail is frequently led by a former political prisoner who has firsthand knowledge of the facility or who served his sentence alongside Mandela.
The guide’s comments explain the anti-apartheid movement’s history and provide insight into his life as a prisoner, as well as how the prison became a symbol of a new vision for South Africa and its people. The guide will also detail the prisoners’ problems, hunger strikes, the fight to better the prisoners’ conditions, and how they spent their time and how they felt during their final days in prison.
When you visit the Robben Island Museum, you will feel extremely blessed to have firsthand knowledge of the prison and its impact on Cape Town’s history! Then, on a 45-minute guided bus tour around the island, visitors may see the mental hospital, military installation, and leper colony, as well as learn about the island’s history. Murray’s Bay harbour, with its Muslim shrine Kramat and museum shop, is also worth visiting.
Robben Island Museum Contact Details
Telephone: +27 (0)21 413 4200 / +27 (0)21 419 1057
Email: infow@robben-island.org.za