The Desolate Prison Island where Nelson Mandela Spent 18 Years
UNESCO World Heritage sites are some of my favorite places to visit for great worldschooling field trips, and Cape Town, South Africa has access to two! I’ve already talked about how Table Mountain is part of the UNESCO Natural Heritage Site called the Cape Floral Region, but nearby Robben Island is the area’s cultural site.
Robben Island is a small island located in the waters just to the north of Cape Town which was used as a prison for nearly 400 years. During that time it hosted a large number of prisoners, including over 3,000 political prisoners imprisoned for opposing Apartheid. The most famous of these would later go on to become the first post-Apartheid president, a man by the name of Nelson Mandela.
Robben Island
Tour Times: Daily at 9:00, 11:00, 1:00, and 3:00
Duration: around 3.5 hours, including ferry rides
Price: R600 ($33)/adult and R310 (17.50)/child under 18
Phone: +27 (0)21 413 4200
Buy Tickets at: robben-island.org.za/tour-types
Tours to visit Robben Island leave from the
Nelson Mandela Gateway at the V&A Waterfront
(click for directions)
Before I get started, I think it only fair that I let you know that while I researched Robben Island extensively for this post, when it came down to it I decided not to take my kids on the tour…. yet.
My family prefers visiting locations where we don’t need a tour guide since we like to take things at our own pace and let our kids explore. Add to that the fact that several reviews of the tour say that trying to fit everything into the allotted time felt rushed, and I didn’t think that my kids (at 6 and 7 years old) were ready for the tour. But we did give them several high-quality resources for teaching worldschoolers about the life of Nelson Mandela, which I will link to down below. And hopefully, we’ll be able to make it back for the tour when our kids can better appreciate the history.
What is included in the Robben Island Tour?
The Ferry
The ferry for the Robben Island tour leaves from the Nelson Mandela Gateway located at the V&A Waterfront. The Gateway is a three-story museum that is itself worth a visit, so if you can, arrive early and check it out.
There are several ferries used to bring guests to the island, two of which, the Susan Kruger and the Dias, were previously used to transport staff and prisoners to and from the island. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled during the ferry ride, as sometimes you can spot dolphins from the boat!
The Tour Guide
Upon arrival, guests are greeted by their guide, who will be one of the former prisoners from the island. All the guides have firsthand experience with what it was like to be a political prisoner on the island, which can give the stories they tell an extra touch of realism.
Your guide will lead you to a bus, and your tour will begin.
The Graveyard
During the mid-to-late-1800s, Robben island was used as a leper colony, before a cure for leprosy was found. One of the first stops on the trip is to the leper’s graveyard where these unfortunate people were buried after succumbing to the disease.
The Lime Quarry
The next stop is the Lime Quarry, where political prisoners would be forced to work. The lime wasn’t used for any real purpose, and the main point of having prisoners break down the rocks was simply to tire their bodies and wear away at their resolve. Since the end of Apartheid and the closing of Robben Island as a prison, many former prisoners, including Mandela, have returned to the island to place a rock in the quarry. These rocks have formed a mound that guards the entrance to the quarry.
Robert Sobukwe’s house
Robert Sobukwe was another famous political prisoner who was sent to the island. He was a founding member of the Pan Africanist Congress, and a leader among those who protested apartheid. He was blamed for the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, where 69 peaceful protesters were killed by government police forces, and subsequently sent to Robben Island.
It was said that the government feared the strength of his influence among his peers, and so this house was built to keep him separate from the other prisoners.
Bluestone quarry
The next stop on most tours is the Bluestone quarry, where prisoners were put to work mining the rubble that was used to make a large berm to protect the quarry from the sea. As with the lime quarry, work here was hard and used as a way of suppressing the prisoners.
WW2 Era Bunkers
Countries around the world were impacted by World War 2, and South Africa was no different. During the war, South Africa built army and navy bunkers on Robben Island as an ideal place to protect Cape Town. These remain here today as a reminder of that time period.
Robben Island Maximum Security Prison
When the bus arrives at the prison, it is time to disembark and explore the prison itself. Major points of interest include the communal sleeping quarters, the exercise yard, and the Kramat, a Muslim shrine to Sayed Adurohman Moturu who died on the island in 1754.
At this point in the tour, it is important to remember that your guide was personally a prisoner in this very building. Each guide has his own stories to tell of his time on the island, and it is worth asking questions where you can.
Nelson Mandela’s Prison Cell
The final stop on the tour is in the small, bare room where Mandela himself spent 18 of his 27 years in prison. There was no bed, so he was made to sleep on the floor, and a bare bulb burned above his head. The quarters were bad, but the isolation was worse, as he was allowed only a single 500-word letter each month and only one visit each year.
Faced with the prospect of life in this small cell, Mandela said that his convictions were not broken, but strengthened. He became a symbol of the anti-apartheid movement, and eventually one of the men who ended it for good.
So, just who was he?
Who was Nelson Mandela?
Nelson Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, in Mvezo, South Africa. He was raised as the son of the Chief, descended from Thimbu Royalty, going to school and afterward to college. He attended the College of Fort Hare first but was expelled for participating in a student protest. Later he attended the University of Witwatersrand, where he earned the ability to practice Law.
In the 1940’s he joined the African National Congress (ANC), and increasingly participated in politics. By 1949, when the ANC proposed the Programme of Action, he was deeply involved with the group. The Programme of Action was intended to secure freedom and political independence for black South Africans through peaceful means, such as strikes and boycotts.
In 1952, Mandela and Oliver Tambo started South Africa’s first black-owned law firm, Mandela & Tambo. That same year, he was appointed the National Volunteer-in-Chief for the ANC’s Defiance Against Unjust Laws Campaign. By the end of the year, Mandela and 19 others were charged under the Suppression of Communism Act for their roles in that movement.
Nevertheless, in 1955 when the Freedom Charter was adopted, Nelson Mandela was still there. More than a year later, in December of 1956, he and 155 other ANC members who supported the Freedom Charter were arrested for treason. The trial would last nearly 5 years.
During that time, peaceful protests continued without Mandela, and in March of 1960, one of those protests ended in a police-led massacre of 69 unarmed protesters.
That massacre changed the course of the ANC’s protests, and in June of 1961, only a few months after being acquitted of treason, Nelson Mandela was asked to lead the Umkhonto weSizwe, an armed resistance to the government’s oppression. Later that year, they announced their intentions for armed resistance in a series of bombings against unoccupied structures.
Soon after, Mandela left South Africa for a few months to seek support for the movement abroad, and upon his return, he was arrested for illegally leaving the country and for inciting strikes. He was convicted and sentenced to 5 years in prison.
However, before his sentence was complete, he and 10 others were charged with sabotage, beginning what would become known as the Rivonia Trial. During this trial, Mandela chose not to refute the charges, and instead, he gave what became one of his most famous speeches, the “Speech from the Dock.”
Following the trial, he and 7 others were sentenced to prison for life.
Soon after, Nelson Mandela found himself on Robben Island, where he would spend the next 18 years of his life. At the end of those 18 years, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and transferred to Pollsmoor Prison for treatment, and then to Victor Verster Prison until his eventual release.
Mandela was not released from prison until 1990, 27 years after being sentenced to life. Soon after, in 1993, he would jointly receive the Nobel Peace Prize with President Frederik Willem de Klerk, for their agreement to peacefully bring Apartheid to an end in favor of majority rule. In 1994 Mandela became the first post-Apartheid President of South Africa.
Why Field Trips that discuss hard topics are important for worldschoolers
I was recently asked why we would want to let our kids hear about these hard things from the past now when they are young and innocent. Wouldn’t you rather protect them from the harsh realities of injustice in the world while you still can?
And, as a parent, I can totally understand that. I do want to protect my kids, to keep them safe. But I also want them to grow into the kind of adults who take a stand against injustice when it appears. I want them to stand on the right side of history, and that means teaching them which side that is.
If we want kids to take a stand for important things, we need them to understand that injustice exists in the world long before they get to the point where they are the ones who are capable of causing it.
As parents, we lead by example, showing them how to act through our own actions. Field trips to places like Robben Island, to hard places that tell us how injustices were hidden away out of sight of the majority of people, those trips teach our kids why we act as we do.
We teach them about hard things to protect them from the future that could happen if we don’t.
Resources for teaching kids about Nelson Mandela and Apartheid
While worldschooling families tend to focus on learning through experience, it’s important to help kids create a framework for understanding the experiences they have. That’s where great books come in!
These are the books we used with our kids to help them understand who Nelson Mandela was and what he did for moving race relations forward in South Africa and across the globe.
Invictus
Rugby is one of the most popular sports in South Africa, and that popularity helped South Africa’s team to become a symbol of unity just after apartheid. This is that story.
The Long Road to Freedom
Long Walk to Freedom is the title of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, written in prison and smuggled out by other prisoners. This movie takes a look at his life, dramatized for the screen. I’d suggest this for older kids only, and you may want to screen it first.