Robben Island

http://africanhistory.about.com/od/apartheid/p/RobbenIsland.htm

-Nelson Mandela was locked up here for over 25 years
-He was only allowed to leave his cell to do manual labor in a quarry, like many other anti-apartheid political prisoners.
-In 1652 Jan van Riebeeck established the first permanent settlement by Europeans in South Africa in the area that today is the city of Cape Town.
-Van Riebeeck was sent by the Dutch East India Company, a company based in the Netherlands which traded goods between the East and Europe.
-Five years later, in 1657, he decided to use the island as a place of banishment, sending exiles and slaves to dig out the white stone found there.
-In 1959 the island became a maximum security prison and between 1961 and 1991 over three thousand men were incarcerated here as political prisoners.
-June 1990 saw the start of the removal of political prisoners by then-president FW de Klerk, the last leaving the island in May 1991.
-It is now a world heritage site.