The island has been privileged to have had its refugees be constituted of many great men and leaders in its history. They all had two things in common they were black, coloured, Indian or African and were all male.

The first prisoner was Autshumato, a man who tried to take advantage of playing the Dutch off against his own tribe, the Khoikhoi. In 1658 Van Riebeeck imprisoned him to the island for aiding the breakdown of the Dutch livestock trade. Autshumato made the first ever successful escape from the island.

Neville Alexander was sentenced, along with four other members of the Yu Chi Chan Club and National Liberation Front, to ten years imprisonment. Their crime was reading about and discussing armed struggle.

Michael Dingake in 1965 was given a fifteen year sentence on the island for inciting people to leave South Africa to undergo military training and for recruiting people to the ANC.

Jeff Masemola OF the PAC (Pan Africanist Congress) was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1963 after he and fourteen others were charged with conspiracy to commit sabotage.

Indres Naidoo

'Terror' Mosioua Lekota