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| Boer Camp |
Prisoners from
12 nations |
Cronje at Longwood |
Boers at Longwood |
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| Broadbottom camp |
Broadbottom camp |
Boer Camp |
Broadbottom camp |
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| Cronje's house |
Sunday service |
huts |
Repatriation |
Saint Helena is an island in the South Atlantic Ocean. The
territory consists of the island of Saint Helena, as well as the
dependencies of Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha. The island was
discovered on 21 May 1502 by the Portuguese explorer Joćo da Nova and named
after Helena of Constantinople. The Dutch claimed the island from 1645
but, in 1659, it was settled by the English East India Company under a
charter granted by Richard Cromwell. The island was lost to the Dutch
for a short period in 1673 but it was retaken and the island re-granted to
the East India Company by Charles II. Before the Boer War, Saint
Helena was already famous for being the place of exile of Napoleon Bonaparte
from 1815 until his death in 1821. Longwood House, where Napoleon
stayed, and Sane Valley, where he was buried until 1840, are still owned by
the French government.
St Helena was the first place to receive Boer prisoners. However,
the camp set up there was quickly overwhelmed by the numbers of men and new
camps were established in India.
In May 1901, at the capital and port or St Helena, Jamestown, two Boers swam to a Russian ship moored
in the harbour but
they were not permitted to board and were later recaptured. In the
same month, camp security stopped a larger attempt to escape from Deadwood
by a group of prisoners, a concerted attempt by a group of prisoners
at Deadwood Camp was foiled by the authorities. In Bermuda, a small number
of Boers broke loose in Darren's Island and for a long time eluded capture.
There were a large number of Boer sympathisers who may have helped them.
