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A Social History of Robben Island As a Penal Colony, C. 1652-1795

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A Social History of Robben Island As a Penal Colony, C. 1652-1795 COPYRIGHT AND CITATION CONSIDERATIONS FOR THIS THESIS/ DISSERTATION o Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. o NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. o ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. How to cite this thesis Surname, Initial(s). (2012). Title of the thesis or dissertation (Doctoral Thesis / Master’s Dissertation). Johannesburg: University of Johannesburg. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/102000/0002 (Accessed: 22 August 2017). A Social History of Robben Island as a Penal Colony, c. 1652-1795 by Laylah Albertyn 200971729 Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in the Department of Historical Studies of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg supervised by Prof. Gerald Groenewald March 2019 Acknowledgements My sincere gratitude goes to my dissertation supervisor, Professor Gerald Groenewald of the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Johannesburg. Prof. Groenewald’s office was always open whenever I had any queries with regards to my research and writing – he has allowed this dissertation to be my own work but has guided me in the right direction. His patience, encouragement, enthusiasm and support were greatly appreciated. I would also like to thank my parents, Fieroza and Jamiel, for being my pillars of strength and for always believing in me. I am especially grateful to my siblings, family and friends whose love, guidance, support and encouragement have always been and will always be appreciated. A very special thanks to my late grandparents for pushing me to pursue my studies and for moulding me into the person I am today. 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. Table of Contents Page Chapter 1: Introduction, Literature Review and Research Methodology 1 Chapter 2: Crime and Punishment in the Early Modern Dutch World 12 Chapter 3: The Infrastructure and Administration of Robben Island 34 Chapter 4: The Bandieten and Bannelingen of Robben Island 45 Chapter 5: Resistance and Revolts on Robben Island 72 Chapter 6: Conclusion 93 Appendices 97 Bibliography 101 List of Graphs Page Graph 1: ‘Non-European’ Convicts and Exiles on Robben Island, 1728-1788 58 Graph 2: European and Indiaanen Prisoners on Robben Island, 1728-1748 60 Graph 3: Convicts on Robben Island, 1765-1795 61 Graph 4: Places where Robben Island Convicts Were Sentenced, 1728-1788 62 Chapter 1 Introduction, Literature Review and Research Methodology Introduction Robben Island is a well-known historical site and is known worldwide for the role it played as a political prison during apartheid. The Island symbolises both the ‘repressiveness of the apartheid state and the strength of those who opposed it.’1 This aspect of the Island’s history has lately been well covered by historians and others.2 While the use of Robben Island as a political prison during the apartheid period is familiar, the various ways in which it had been used in the past has been less fully explored.3 In particular, its use as a penal colony in the seventeenth and eighteenth century’s remains little known. From the late sixteenth century the Dutch and English began challenging Portuguese hegemony in the Atlantic World. In 1619 both the Dutch East India Company’s (VOC) and the English East India Company (EIC) agreed to use Table Bay as a halfway station en route to the East, consequently incorporating Table Bay into the Atlantic orbit. From early on, Robben Island acted as a pantry where passing visitors could collect eggs, grow crops, fatten livestock and hunt animals (mainly seals, penguins and birds) – the Cape however became more than a halfway station; with English ships sometimes off-loading convicts and unwanted persons at either Table Bay or on Robben Island during the 1620s and 1630s. The Cape became a permanent feature in Atlantic world when the VOC formally founded a refreshment station for passing ships on the shores of Table Bay in 1652.4 In order to supply meat to passing ships, 1 Deacon, H. (ed) The Island: A History of Robben Island 1488-1990 (Bellville: University of the Western Cape, 1997), p. 1 2 For example, Alexander, N. Robben Island Dossier, 1964-1974 (Cape Town, 1994); Buntman, F.L. Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance to Apartheid (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) and Desai, A. Reading Revolution, Shakespeare on Robben Island (Haymarket Books, 2014) 3 An exception being Harriet Deacon’s detailed work on the nineteenth century: ‘A History of the Medical Institutions on Robben Island, 1846-1910’ (PhD thesis, Cambridge University, 1994) 4 Groenewald, G. ‘Southern Africa and the Atlantic World’ in Coffman, D., Leonard, A. and O’Reilly, W. (eds) The Atlantic World (New York: Routledge, 2015), pp. 103-104 1 the VOC authorities had to barter with the indigenous Khoikhoi, which sometimes proved problematic and led to a series of skirmishes and wars. Political considerations soon prompted the VOC to consider using the Island as a place of imprisonment and banishment – first for Khoikhoi ‘political prisoners’ and later for criminals as well.5 The Cape of Good Hope formed part of the VOC’s vast empire. This empire was centred on Batavia (modern Jakarta in Indonesia) and often made use of penal transportation, with banishment being one of the harshest penalties imposed in the Dutch East Indies (due to the lack of prisons in the modern sense). Criminals and convicts from various colonies in the Dutch East Indies (Southeast Asia and the Indonesian archipelago), and of various ethnic groups, were banished to the Cape – these ranged from high ranking political exiles to slaves and VOC employees. The Cape’s geographical location and isolation from the Dutch East Indies made it ideal for both penal transportation and political exile.6 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 as the Island provided the farthest and safest place of exile and imprisonment for both the inhabitants of the Cape and those transported from other colonies.7 As such Robben Island in fact became a small microcosm of the Cape – containing people of various ethnicities, cultures, languages and status groups. These cosmopolitan collections of people were all under the control of a small number of Dutch officials and soldiers who were stationed on Robben Island (which was technically an ‘outpost’ under the control of the Cape’s VOC government).8 All these people intermingled with each other on a daily basis which over time led to the development of a unique Island culture. 5 Penn, N. ‘Robben Island 1488-1805’ in Deacon, H. (ed), The Island: A History of Robben Island 1488-1990 (Bellville: University of the Western Cape, 1997), pp. 14-15 6 Ward, K. Networks of Empire: Forced Migration in the Dutch East India Company (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 11, 123-124 7 Ibid., pp. 139 and 244 8 Truter, P. ‘The Robben Island Rebellion of 1751: A study of Convict Experience at the Cape of Good Hope’ Historical Approaches, Vol. 3, 2004, p. 39 2 Robben Island is thus of interest not only to the history of the Cape of Good Hope, but also to the wider history of the Dutch colonial empire in the early modern period.
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