SSH104

Introduction to the History of South

Africa
The Discovery of Diamonds
Introduction
• 1866/1867 Diamonds
• 1886 Main gold, Minor 1871, 1884
• Story of change
• Political
• Social, experimentations
• Economic
• South Africa more interesting
Discovery
• 1866/1867 Depending of source
• “This diamond is the rock upon which the future success of
South Africa will be built” Richard Southey, Colonial Secretary
• Create local Capitalists, Rhodes, Barnato, Beit
• Became a rival to India as wealth generation
• Diamonds payed better than farming
• Introduction of compounds
• Diamond fields easily acquired
The building of a boom
• Erasmus and Louisa Jacobs
• No-one realises the value
• Discoveries in Griqualand West
• 1870 10 000 diggers
• Alluvial diamonds initially
• Vooruitzicht, de Beers farm, Colesberg Kopje, now a hole
• Griqua had lived there for 70 years
• Territory also claimed by Boer republics
The building of a boom
• 1871 separate Crown Colony, annexed 1880
• For a short while Diggers Republic under Stafford Parker
• Kimberley founded
• Living conditions poor, death toll
• 1872 elementary hospital
• Transport difficult, 6 weeks to Cape Town, 4 weeks to PE
• 1873 Population 50 000, half were white
• “Share-working” sub-contractors, practical digger, labourers, received
percentage of profits
The building of a boom
• Numerous problems, theft, conceal diamonds for secret sale
• Partnerships formed, supervise, sort
• Tensions, fears – white miners might be replaced by black
miners
Black miners
• Entitled to buy licences
• Allotted poor mines, Bultfontein, Dutoitspan
• Resented by white miners
• Spurious claims of theft
• “Vagrants”
• All servants were supposed to carry passes, only applied to black
miners
• After Annexation supposedly equal rights for all
• Diggers lobbied for own control
Black miners
• Rioted, Commission met demands
• Suspension of black miners licences, require white support
• Governor Barkly “against reason and justice”
• Invalidated commission
• Limits number of claims, ownership by black miners
• Sorting of “debris”
• Last black claim 1883, Rev. Gwayi Tyamzashe
• Continued river diggings until 20th century
Migrant Labour
• Existed before discovery of diamonds
• Migrate to colony to work on farms or road building
• Chiefs initially controlled the flow of migrant labour
• Depending on military needs etc
• 50 000 black migrants each year, relatively stable
• Acquire cash for weapons, farming implements, bride-price
• Requirements to maintain tribal structure, fend off attackers
• Pay 10- 30 shillings, daily ration of mealie meal, 500 grams of meat
• Contrast navvies given 2 pints of ale and 2 lbs of meat a day
Migrant Labour
• Few vegetables
• Highest wages in Southern Africa on the diamond fileds
• White men worked as labourers too, paid more, not only a
racist policy, many had experience from Europe
• Disparate rate of pay white GBP 2 a day, person of colour GBP 2
a week with lodging
• Length of stay depended upon distance travelled and ability
• Initially lived close to diggings, eventually compounds arose
Migrant Labour
• Once registered one had to see out contract
• Deserters seldom caught
• Reasons for desertion, brutality of employer, danger, food, wages
• Desertion linked to theft in minds of employers
• Theft punishable by one year hard labour, 50 lashes
• No rights, assumed guilty, all diamonds stolen
• Physical punishment was often illegally used for slow work or
carelessness
Black Flag Rebellion
• Easily recoverable diamonds grew scarce
• Finance dried up
• Depression, flood of Brazilian diamonds
• Required working capital
• Diggers left for the gold fields
• Remaining diggers tenuous, lack of control, diminishing returns, higher
taxes
• 1875 floods/torrential rains unable to work the digs
• March Combined Diggers Association called out its members under arms
Black Flag Rebellion
• Southey’s police inadequate, diggers claimed to take over role
• White and black diggers even though under same pressures,
split along racial lines
• British troops called
• Police unable to enforce law, diggers stopped it
• Diggers disbanded
• Soldiers arrived to rebellion being over
• Southey retired and black diggers lost their rights
Concentration of Power
• Wealth generation required quantity
• Competition led to lowering of diamond prices
• Mining moved deeper
• Hazards, required capital
• Formation of mining companies 1880 formation of de Beers,
Rhodes and Rudd
• Formation of joint stock companies
• 71 companies by 1881, speculative buying led to a crash
Concentration of Power
• Few survivors, De Beers, Kimberley Central Company, and
French Company (Compagnie Francaise des Mines de Diamants
du Cap)
• Barnato owns Kimberly Mine by 1888
• Rothschild backs Rhodes, now owns all dry diggings in
Kimberley
• Rhodes had a monopoly over colony’s greatest producer of
revenue- rendered control in political life too
Closed Compounds
• Early on white diggers feared being “swamped”
• Migrants be localised, management followed suite
• Strike all groups united
• Separate white and black above ground curtail IDB – illicit
diamond buying
• Solution – house black workers in barracks
• Shopkeepers complained, loss of revenue
• Assurances of custom from mining companies
Closed Compounds
• Separated skilled and unskilled labour
• Locked in, fences on way to pit, searched on return
• No difference between free labourers compounds and
prisoners
• Compounds increased the spread of disease, one in fifteen ill at
any time
• Night soil removers, worked with sewage, one in one hundred
Railway Boom
• Dramatic change in economy
• Cape Town - Kimberley
• 1873 railway proposed, agriculture – wool
• Cape Government purchased the private railway at Wellington in 1873
• Narrow gauge railway
• Construction of Railway seen as threat to independence of Boer Republics
• Three new lines, Port Elizabeth – De Aar, East London – Aliwal North
• 1885 Drop in the prices of almost everything due to cheap rail transport
– GBP 24 per ton for coal to GBP 6