E AST O REGONIAN
WEEKEND, FEBRUARY 23, 2019
THE PRISONS
q
MANDELA I NAPOLEON
Photos by Steve Forrester
LEFT: Mandela’s cell in the prison on Robben Island, to which he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964. RIGHT: Napoleon selected this spot in the Valley of the Willows for
his entombment. It was his resting place from 1821 to 1840, when his casket was moved to Paris.
Voyages to Robben
Island and St. Helena
Jamestown
By STEVE FORRESTER
For The Daily Astorian
O
n a January trip to South Africa and the
South Atlantic, my wife and I saw two of
the world’s most storied places of captiv-
ity: Robben Island off Cape Town, and the
island of St. Helena.
Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years on
Robben Island. Napoleon was the captive of St. Helena
for six years and entombed there for another 19.
Viewed from Capetown, Robben Island is an indis-
tinct land mass — two miles of fl atness lacking sharp
contours. In addition to a place of imprisonment, the
island was a leper colony, beginning in the late 1800s.
Some 1,000 persons are buried in the island’s leper
cemetery.
Robben Island contains two prison sites: one for
conventional criminals, another for political prison-
ers during the Apartheid era. Apartheid was the South
African system (1948-1986) that systematically sepa-
rated the non-white population and infl icted an onerous
code in which blacks were forced to carry passes. Dis-
sidents like Nelson Mandela were sentenced to Robben
Island. The prison in which Mandela and hundreds of
others were held is not large.
The startling aspect of our prison tour was the
guide. He was a former political prisoner. Following a
brief introduction, the man took our group of about 30
to the dormitory where he had been confi ned. It con-
tained eight bunk beds and a common space.
We sat on benches while he spoke to us for about 30
minutes. He told us of young political prisoners who
were hanged on Robben Island. He described the dis-
tinction between detention and imprisonment. The
defi ning aspect of detention was torture. That is why,
he said, imprisonment was preferable.
From the dormitory he walked us into a large court-
AFRICA
Longwood
House
Napoleon’s Tomb
St. Helena
Airport
DIANA’S
PEAK NAT’L
PARK
Libreville
Pointe-Noire
St. Helena Island
2 miles
(United Kingdom)
Luanda
South
Atlantic
Ocean
Robben
Island
Cornelia
Battery
Namibe
Walvis Bay
(S. Africa)
Airstrip
Lighthouse
Murray’s Bay
Harbour
Cape
Town
Guest
House
400 miles
2,000 feet
Alan Kenaga/EO Media Group
yard, in which prisoners sat on the ground and broke
rocks. Reentering the building, midway down a hall-
way, we saw Mandela’s small cell.
Prior to ending the tour, our guide was asked about
his feelings in coming back to that prison. “We bear no
grudge,” he said. That exhortation and everything he
had shown us was the equivalent of a dramatic and poi-
gnant sermon on that sunny Sunday morning.
‘Nowhere’
People travel to St. Helena for one reason: Napoleon.
My grandmother inspired me to make the trip. She
took this sea voyage, likely on a British supply ship, in
the 1950s or 1960s. During my childhood visits to her
room, I observed the small watercolor of a corpulent
Napoleon that she had purchased on St. Helena.
In the early morning hours of a Sunday, it was thrill-
ing to catch the fi rst glimpse of St. Helena. The island
is the top of a volcano. It juts from the ocean like an
immense rock fortifi cation.
Almost halfway between West Africa and Bra-
zil, this speck in the ocean is commonly referred to as
“nowhere.” Following Napoleon’s escape from his fi rst
exile, on Elbe, and the subsequent carnage of the Battle
of Waterloo, St. Helena’s extreme remoteness speaks
to Britain’s eagerness to put Napoleon away, for good.
The island is a British possession with a governor.
The French are represented by a consul. The Tricolor
fl ies at two French properties: Napoleon’s house called
Longwood and Napoleon’s fi rst tomb.
From my reading about St. Helena, I had expected
heavy wind on the plain where Longwood resides.
Wind and the drafty home sometimes drove Napo-
leon to distraction. On the day of our visit, however,
the atmosphere was placid. Without constant refurbish-
ing, Longwood would deteriorate from the weather and
termites. The French government invested. One sees
Napoleon’s small bedroom, the bathroom with its deep
metal tub, the room in which he died, the dining room
that an abundance of candles made oppressively hot as
Napoleon’s court stood about in full dress. An excellent
rendition of the atmospherics of Longwood is Jean-Paul
Kauffmann’s book “The Black Room at Longwood.”
The pathway to Napoleon’s tomb is suffi ciently wide
for 14 grenadiers to have carried a coffi n and placed it
on a horse-drawn carriage. There was no name on top
of the tomb, because the British and the French could
not agree on the wording. During the period of Napo-
leon’s presence inside the tomb, visitors carved their
initials on the top. Today the visitor is kept at a distance.
We saw the residence to which Napoleon and his
party rode for a surprise picnic lunch two weeks prior
to his death. St. Helena’s fortress exterior hides a lush,
green interior. It is said to have multiple ecosystems.
And it has a bird that appears nowhere else.
———
Steve Forrester is the president and CEO of EO
Media Group. Contact him at sforrester@eomedia-
group.com.
Longwood was Napoleon’s
residence on St. Helena.