Mandela's 27 years in prison: where he spent them

Nelson Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison near Paarl on Sunday 11 February 1990, aged 71, after 27 years in custody, nine days after President F.W. de Klerk unbanned the African National Congress.

The 27 years are often remembered as 27 years on Robben Island. The island accounts for about two-thirds of them:

Where	When	How long
Pretoria jails (and a brief 1963 spell on the island), trials	Aug 1962 to Jun 1964	about 2 years
Robben Island	1964 to Mar 1982	about 18 years
Pollsmoor Prison, Cape Town	Mar 1982 to Aug 1988	about 6 years
Hospitals (tuberculosis)	Aug to Dec 1988	over 3 months
House at Victor Verster	Dec 1988 to Feb 1990	14 months

He was arrested at a police roadblock outside Howick on 5 August 1962, sentenced to life with seven Rivonia co-accused on 12 June 1964, and moved to Pollsmoor with Walter Sisulu and others on 31 March 1982. According to the Nelson Mandela Foundation, he rejected at least three conditional offers of release along the way.

What he said on the day

His first speech, from Cape Town City Hall that evening, was tougher than its famous opening suggests.

“I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom for all.” — Nelson Mandela, 11 February 1990

He went on to say the conditions that had driven the ANC to armed struggle were still present, stressed that he had negotiated nothing about the country’s future, and closed by repeating his 1964 words from the dock about an ideal “for which I am prepared to die”.

Four years of fraught talks followed. On 27 April 1994 Mandela voted for the first time in his life, and weeks later he was inaugurated as South Africa’s first Black president. He and de Klerk had already shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize.