Why is Robben Island important?
Island of Hope
Why is Robben Island important?
There's a small island seven kilometers off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa. For hundreds of years, ships sailed past it. Prisoners were sent there. And then, in the late 1900s, something happened on that rocky island that changed a whole country.
Robben Island got its name from the Dutch word for seals — the island was covered with them when Europeans first arrived. But starting in the 1600s, it became a place where people in power sent people they wanted to forget. Political prisoners. Sick people. Anyone who made the government uncomfortable.
