Located at the entrance to
Table Bay, 11 km from Cape Town, this island was 'discovered' by
Bartolomeu Dias in 1488. For many years, it was used by
Portuguese navigators, and later by English and Dutch sailors, as a refueling station. In 1654, the settlers of the
Dutch Cape Colony placed all of their ewes and a few rams on Robben Island. The men built a large shed and a shelter. The isolation offered better protection for the livestock against wild animals than on the mainland. The settlers also collected seal skins and boiled oil to supply the needs of the settlement. Since the end of the 17th century, Robben Island has been used for the incarceration of chiefly
political prisoners. The Dutch settlers were the first to use Robben Island as a prison. The island's first prisoner was probably
Autshumato in the mid-17th century. Among its early permanent inhabitants were political leaders imprisoned from other
Dutch colonies, including the
Dutch East Indies. These included the two surviving Malagasy leaders, named in Dutch East India Company records as Massavana and Koesaaij, of the
mutiny of Malagasy slaves on the slave ship Meermin. They had been sold to the
Dutch East India Company in
Madagascar to be enslaved in the Cape Colony. Massavana died three years later, but Koesaaij survived at Robben Island for another 20 years. After the British
Royal Navy captured several Dutch
East Indiamen at the
battle of Saldanha Bay in the
Fourth Anglo-Dutch War in 1781, a boat rowed out to meet the British warships. On board were the "kings of
Ternate and
Tidore, and the princes of the respective families". The Dutch had long held them on "Isle Robin", but then had moved them to Saldanha Bay. In 1806,
Scottish whaler John Murray opened a whaling station at a sheltered bay on the north-eastern shore of the island, which became known as Murray's Bay. It was adjacent to the site of the present-day Murray's Bay
Harbour, which was constructed in 1939–40. After a failed uprising at
Grahamstown in 1819, the fifth of the
Xhosa Wars, the British colonial government sentenced African leader
Makanda Nxele to life imprisonment on the island. He drowned on the shores of
Table Bay after escaping the prison. The island was also used as a
leper colony and animal
quarantine station. Starting in 1845, lepers from the
Hemel-en-Aarde (heaven and earth) leper colony near
Caledon were moved to Robben Island when
Hemel-en-Aarde was found unsuitable. Initially, people were relocated on a voluntary basis, and the lepers were free to leave the island if they so wished. In April 1891, the cornerstones for 11 new buildings to house lepers were laid. After passage of the
Leprosy Repression Act in May 1892, admission was no longer voluntary, and the movement of the lepers was restricted. Doctors and scientists did not understand the disease and thought that isolation was the only way to prevent other people from contracting it. Prior to 1892, an average of about 25 lepers a year were admitted to Robben Island, but in 1892 that number rose to 338, and a further 250 were admitted in 1893. The maximum security prison for political prisoners closed in 1991. The medium security prison for criminal prisoners was closed five years later. Since the
end of apartheid, the island has become a popular tourist destination. It is managed by Robben Island Museum (RIM), which operates the site as a
living museum. In 1999, the island was declared a
World Heritage Site for its importance to South Africa's political history and development of a democratic society. Every year, thousands of visitors take the ferry from the
Victoria & Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town for tours of the island and its former prison. Many of the guides are former prisoners. All land on the island is owned by the nation of South Africa, with the exception of the island church. Administratively, Robben Island is a suburb of the
City of Cape Town. It is open all year around, weather permitting. As a tourist attraction in South Africa's national consciousness, today Robben Island is often regarded as "a symbol of oppression" by many black South Africans. ==Access to the island==