Attempt to leave English convicts at the Cape fails

In 1615 an English party placed ten convicted prisoners at the Cape, according to the later institutional history of Robben Island. The group was attacked by Khoikhoi people, and some prisoners died. John Cross, identified as their leader, secured their transfer to Robben Island, where the survivors could be held more safely. A Cape Town chronology describes the same episode as an attempt to establish deported British criminals that was abandoned after deaths and removals.

The surviving summaries support an unsuccessful English experiment in leaving prisoners at the Cape, but do not provide a complete contemporary account of the orders, the exact date of the landing, or the extent of Sir Thomas Roe’s personal direction. The episode should therefore be distinguished from later proposals for a fort or settlement and from the permanent VOC station established after 1652.

Significance

The episode made Robben Island an early site of English confinement and showed the practical risks of maintaining an isolated English party at the Cape.