Abstract
Abstract : There has been no extensive, systematic work on Robben Island as a penal colony in the VOC period (1652-1795), although some historians have explored aspects of the history of the Island during this period. Robben Island often acted as a secondary site of imprisonment and banishment. Cape authorities used the Island as its main site of imprisonment and banishment since it provided the farthest and safest place of exile and imprisonment for both the inhabitants of the Cape and those transported from other colonies. This dissertation discusses Robben Island as both a penal colony and a community during the period of Dutch administration at the Cape of Good Hope. The study adopts a socio-cultural historical approach by focusing on convict experience on the Island. It also discusses the social identities of the Island’s various inhabitants in an attempt to measure how these identities related to the various social identities which existed in colonial Dutch South Africa. To understand the VOC policies that dealt with crime and punishment, it is important to consider the laws, customs and sensibilities surrounding crime and punishment within the Company, all of which were influenced by developments in Western Europe. Consequently, chapter 2 traces how trends in Europe were reflected in or differed in the Company settlements of Batavia and the Cape of Good Hope. It also explores general trends dealing with offenders and the nature of crime and punishment in these Company settlements. The following chapters deal with the administration and the inhabitants of Robben Island. Chapter 3 discusses the administration of and infrastructure on Robben Island during the VOC period at the Cape. Chapter 4 traces the Island’s transformation into a prison by looking at the convicts and exiles serving their sentences on Robben Island. It not only explains how convicts ended up on the Island, but also uses case studies which came before the Cape’s Council of Justice to explore both the living and working conditions of prisoners and exiles on the Island. Chapter 5 discusses resistance and rebellion on the Island. It argues that both resistance and rebellion on the Island follow similar trajectories to those of the underclasses (slaves, soldiers and sailors) on the mainland.