The Waterfront in Cape Town and South African History

Extract

I spent some time contemplating what you might find particularly interesting about the history of the Waterfront, until I learnt that many of you are staying at hotels on Portswood Road, and that the conference itself is at the Breakwater campus of the University of Cape Town (UCT.) This persuaded me to use the history of the crenellated building that dominates Portswood Ridge, and forms the heart of the UCT Business School campus, to talk about a number of important themes in the history of the country you have chosen for your latest conference. Just over one hundred years ago, that building came into existence as The Industrial Breakwater Prison. It was an addition to the original convict station that lay further down Portswood Road towards the sea. There are perhaps four particularly important ways in which this building, and its surrounding area, were connected to significant moments or processes in South Africa's past: the development of Cape Town's harbor, colonial conquest and resistance, the development of a diamond industry and, yes, the origins of apartheid. How so?