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District
6 | Robben Island | Contemporary
Context | Materials
Pack
Robben Island
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Robben
Island |
The
prison |
Cell
block |
Mandela's
cell |
Robben Island
is a small island situated in Table Bay nine kilometres
away from Cape Town. Since the mid 1600’s it has
been the home of political prisoners, and it also
became
a hospital and the site of a leper colony.
In 1961 the
Prisons Department took over the whole Island and began
using it as a maximum security prison. All the prisoners
were black, and all the warders were white. This was
where Nelson Mandela was held for twenty six years of
his life.
Visit Robben
Island
Using
Evidence – the skills based approach
(Torquay
Girls Grammar School)
Source A
(from an
interview with Nelson Mandela 1994)
"What
was important to us was the fact that the ideas for
which we were sent to Robben would never die…
It
enabled us to endure some of the harshest experiences
a human being can have behind bars…Everything which
enhanced your worth as a human being was suppressed."
Source B
(From an
interview with James Gregory 1994, Mandela’s personal
warder in prison)
"when
I went to the Island I was told that these people were
terrorists…it was fed to you every day, in the media,
radio.. and you thought you were going to find a lot
of monsters there – I kept my distance in the beginning,
but as time went on I realised that these people were
not that bad."
Source C
Entrance
to Robben Island
Source D
(from an
article by Ormonde Pollock – Cape Times 27th
April 1977
"In
the few hours of going through the prison we never saw
anyone who appeared to be ill-treated – definitely
nobody who matched the following statement in a UN
publication:
‘Political
prisoners and opponents of apartheid are accorded especially
cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and are tortured
by the South African authorities’
Source E
(Cape Times
27th April 1977)
"All
reports on the visit by the Press to Robben Island
had to be cleared by the Prisons department before
publication."
Questions
- Read though
sources A – E. Do they all agree on conditions for
prisoners on Robben Island?
- Why is
Source C a biased source of information? Who did it
serve with pride?
- Why do
you think that information printed about Robben Island
was often subjected to censorship?
- Even though
these sources might be biased explain how they might
be useful to a historian. Refer to each in detail.
When looking
for bias you need to check the following:
- Is the
account balanced ?
- Are
facts used selectively ?
- Look
at the choice of language – do certain words reveal
a bias?
- What
views are influencing the source?
- Can you
think of other sources of information which could
be used to give more insight into conditions on Robben
Island?
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