Robben Island was used as a posting station by passing ships from the sixteenth century, and by subsequent governments as a prison: the Dutch kept prisoners from their East Indian colonies there. During the nineteenth century, able-bodied prisoners were transferred to the mainland for manual labour, and the prison population on the island increasingly came to consist of the infirm. It later became a leper colony. During the Second World War the island was part of South Africa’s coastal defences. In 1960, it became a high-security prison, housing political prisoners. A world heritage site, it is now a site of pilgrimage and an important tourist attraction.

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