Mr. Barber and Freddy together with several other members of the family started for the diamond fields ten days ago . . . and many others in this neighborhood are preparing to go. It was not the newspaper reports which set our people “agoing” it was the private letters from the diamond fields from relations of ours, letters of which there can be no doubt of their truth, which caused them to go. . . . I never saw anyone so excited as Freddy was about diamonds, his sheep farming prospects were very good, but he at once let one of his larger flocks and another Hal will look after. . . . His angora goats too he let, and his favorite . . . gun he sold for a share in a diamond company . . . started about a month ago. . . . In fact the whole party went off in high spirits; very many other parties are preparing to go. . . . I must say I should like to go. . . . How jolly it would be.[21]
Passages such as the following from an 1872 letter written by J. X. Merriman (who would later go on to become a South African parliamentarian and eventually the prime minister of the Cape Colony) conveyed exactly the type of optimism that drove Mary Barber’s “Freddy” to abandon his livestock in the pursuit of diamonds: “I promised to try to give you some kind of account of this place but nothing is more difficult. It is, you must confess, something strange to see any place in South Africa where everyone seems at once busy and prosperous, where everyone makes more or less money and the sound of bankruptcy . . . is unknown. I am as much pleased and surprised with this place (the dry diggings) as I was disgusted with the river diggings. . . . The honest Dutchman is quite in the minority and is freely blackguarded even by black fellows.”[22]Naturally, not all of the correspondence emanating from the mines was so sanguine. The regional destitution and topographical starkness were often as discouraging for the authors/miners as was the absence of any good fortune digging for diamonds. For example, one of the first letters that the aforementioned Englishman, John Dugmore, sent back home to his wife indicated that “the appearance was one of the most dreary and barren you could imagine, my spirits fell to zero at the very appearance. Not a vestige of grass and the few bushes almost all leafless and scarce but a gravel free from stones with the exception of a bed of sand so deep that the oxen could barely tow the wagon through. . . . There are hundreds of people here working hard from day-to-day and from mouth-to-mouth without the least success.” Whether or not these letters compelled some individuals to flock to the mines and others to give them a wide berth, they do offer a colorful glimpse into the early days of South Africa’s “Wild West.”
The “African Rush”
If the white diggers and speculators who flocked to the diggings originated from far-flung places, a much more proximate “regional rush” of black Africans unfolded in parallel. Arguably more important than the arrival of foreigners, without this regional influx the diamond industry would have failed to develop so rapidly. In October 1880, for example, the local Daily Independent declared: “Native labour is the life of the Diamond Fields, and just as in proportion as the supply and demand of this commodity varies, so in a great measure is the prosperity of the community gauged.” In general, African communities situated closest to the diggings provisioned the mining operations, whereas societies further removed supplied migrant labor, though exceptions to this generalization certainly existed. The first Africans to engage were the Griqua—prompted by perceived opportunity or resigned destitution, or both. These local residents initially roamed the diamondiferous area looking for plainly visible or easily accessible stones, until all of these gems had been removed. Subsequently, as people in further-removed African communities of, for example, Pedi, Sotho, Zulu, Thlapong, and Tsonga became aware of the remunerative opportunities on the mines, they descended on the diggings to purchase and work their own claims. Or, as happened much more commonly as time passed, they went to work for white claim holders and, eventually, the emergent, white-run diamond enterprises.
African claim holders initially operated on a par with their white counterparts, but as competition between blacks and whites over access to plots and labor increased, African participants soon felt the harsh effects of racism. Racial prejudice, manifested in both informal practices and official policies, eventually relegated African claim holders to the less-productive riverine sites before ultimately preventing them from owning any claims at all. This legal preclusion reduced Africans to migrant laborers and/or extra-legal participants in the diamond trade, involved in creative, yet increasingly criminalized, activities. Over time, and especially after confronted with rapidly deteriorating living conditions in the wake of the European colonial conquests, legions of Africans migrated to the mines from throughout the subcontinent. These individuals typically trekked for long stretches simply to reach the mines and then remained there for months, or even years, before returning home, if they did at all.
Africans’ Temporary Autonomy
Africans’ decline in the emerging South African diamond industry was precipitous, with roughly only a decade elapsing between the existence of black claim holders and their complete disappearance. Although they descended on the mines as independent diggers in significantly smaller numbers than white fortune seekers and, once there, met with only limited success, these Africans still drew the racist ire of the expanding white community. Yet in the heady, early days of the rush, this racially dictated fate was far from the minds of Africans as they actively chased the revenue-generating opportunities that were materializing on the mines.
In the initial period of the river diggings, black claim owners tried their luck alongside whites. In 1872, for example, in addition to a handful of white claim owners, there were over 45 African claim holders active in the Dutoitspan and Bultfontein mines. These diggers typically slept where they labored in temporary, makeshift accommodations that usually consisted of nothing more than a tent. In practice, no occupational challenge was too disagreeable when the pursuit of a diamond was at stake. By the early 1870s, however, white diggers had already begun to abandon these digging sites, including “the graveyard.” As such, by 1874, 120 out of the roughly 140 claim holders on these largely exhausted mines were black.
Owing to the limited yields at Dutoitspan and the particularly unproductive Bultfontein mine, some African claim holders augmented their income via other employment, including as masons, carpenters, and drivers. Many of these early entrepreneurial sorts were Christian and as a result of their interaction with missionaries had developed an independent spirit that inspired them to relocate, away from the control of traditional authorities. They also possessed the types of skills on which they could fall back if their digging endeavors proved fruitless, or simply inadequate. For example, John Komali, an African Christian from Natal, arrived in Kimberley in 1873 and proceeded to work a claim he purchased at Dutoitspan, but he also hired himself out to both dig and oversee operations for various white claim holders in the more bountiful Kimberley mine. These resourceful, often educated individuals even generated a positive impression among some white observers. For example, in 1876, a local missionary wrote: “Not all blacks on the Diamond Fields are servants. There are many quite well educated diggers or merchants. These are mostly from the [Cape] Colony and they are mostly those who tend to remain and build up a nucleus of permanency to which newcomers adhere.”[23]
Respect across racial lines was, however, quite rare. Despite the very limited success that Africans had in generating diamonds from their own holdings, they were unable to avoid the racial antagonism that white diggers were increasingly directing at them. Downtrodden white miners, who were resentful that blacks owned claims and that at least some of them (though certainly not many) were succeeding, fabricated and spread rumors that nonwhite claim holders were more successful. According to J. W. Matthews, writing in 1887, “A great deal of animosity toward the natives existed during this period [the 1870s] . . . (and it) originated from many white men not possessed of claims being jealous of their black brethren digging at Du Toit’s Pan and Bultfontein.”[24]At other times, outright r
acism rather than racially driven jealously motivated whites, especially those who fundamentally objected to Africans’ right to own claims. For example, an editorial from the mid-1870s that appeared in the Diamond Field, the white diggers’ newspaper, proclaimed, “Ruin, financial ruin for the whites, more ruin for the natives, these are the results of the attempt to elevate in one day the servant to an equality with his master. Class legislation, restrictive laws and the holding in check of the native races, till by education they are fit to be our equals, is the only policy that finds favor here.” As tensions simmered, arbitrary abuse toward blacks increased. Violence and extralegal “justice” were now layered upon the existing chaos—intrinsic features of any “Wild West” scenario. Eventually, the situation exploded.
During the calamitous “Black Flag Rebellion” of 1875, frustrated white diggers demanded, among other things, that blacks be stripped of any claims and be denied the right to own them in the future. Alarmed and frightened, African claim owners and diggers at Dutoitspan and Bultfontein sent a petition to the lieutenant-governor of the Cape Colony that articulated their concerns and stated that if the white miners’ “unjust and unreasonable demands” were met, that this concession would generate “poverty and ruin upon your Petitioners.” A tangible hostility now permeated the Kimberley air.
Even though Africans formally retained their right to possess claims for some time thereafter, the persistent racism that they endured soon rendered (prospective) financial success a thing of the past. Extremely, and exceedingly, rare were individuals like Africa Kinde, who had amassed a substantial sum of money via his claims (he had over £4,600 deposited in Standard Bank in 1881) before selling them off and successfully investing in farmland and cattle. The last African to hold a claim at Dutoitspan was the Reverend Gway Tyamzashe, a Congregational minister, in 1883.[25]Subsequently, with the diamond focus having long since gravitated to Kimberley and the dry diggings, blacks held claims in only the nearly barren river sites. Following the Black Flag Rebellion, Africans survived almost exclusively as wage laborers, either for white diggers or, increasingly, for the emerging diamond enterprises. In the relatively short time that had elapsed since the discovery of the Eureka, it had become abundantly clear that Africa’s diamonds were, quite simply, not for Africans.
Unskilled, Migrant African Labor
The discoveries at Kimberley greatly accelerated the existing regional practice of migrating to seek wage labor. As early as 1872, for example, between 15,000 and 35,000 Africans were residing in Kimberley, making it the second largest population center in South Africa (behind only Cape Town). Moreover, each year during the early 1870s, a remarkable 50,000 to 80,000 Africans arrived in and departed from the “diamond city.” During the first decade of mining, many of these migrants came only to earn enough money to purchase a firearm prior to returning to their homelands. As such, between 1872 and 1877, when the British banned Africans from purchasing firearms, approximately 150,000 single-barreled guns came into the Cape Colony, of which roughly half were transshipped to Kimberley, while another 3,000 arrived on the diamond fields via Natal.[26]By 1869, Africans from ever-further distances had begun descending on the diggings seeking work from both white and black claim holders. They quickly came to constitute the heart of the labor force. Yet because they were virtually all unskilled, they endured extremely challenging conditions and were undercompensated for their efforts. Only during the periodic labor shortages that occurred during the first decade of mining were migrant laborers able to secure improved wages. Over time, though, this strategy became increasingly infeasible due to the consolidative reduction in the overall number of employers, the introduction of labor compounds and the ever-tightening regulation and regimentation of the industry.
For at least two decades prior to the discovery of the Eureka, Africans, including Pedi, Tsonga, and (South) Sotho, from the central and northern parts of modern-day South Africa had been migrating southward for work. Their target destinations included a variety of wage labor posts in Natal and the Cape Colony, farm labor and public works projects in the Cape, and, to a lesser extent, agricultural work on farms in the Orange Free State. A number of military and ecological factors had precipitated and shaped these migratory practices, including regional conflict, especially during the tumultuous mfecane, but also related to the increasingly aggressive Boer presence in the interior; diminished productive capacity, stemming from large-scale losses of cattle due to disease and reduced crop yields due to drought; and a decline in the profitability of hunting, as groups had to travel further and further north to reap ivory. These migrant laborers typically remained on the job for between four and eight months—not coincidentally, roughly the amount of time it took them to earn enough to purchase a rifle.
For many of these migrants, the diamond discoveries at Kimberley were a welcome development. To begin with, Kimberley was a much shorter walk than, for example, the eastern Cape. Wages were also higher—at least 50 percent more than those on offer in the Cape and double what was paid out on farms—and thus laborers required less time to save enough for a firearm. However, as the heretofore voluntary nature of this undertaking began to abate, even these appealing features began to recede in importance.
Sensing the economic opportunities available on the mines and desperate to defend their peoples from attack, regional paramount and subchiefs began directing their male subjects to the mines in order to procure guns. These African headmen attempted to cast this endeavor as a political duty, though many subjects undermined this proposed arrangement by permanently relocating to the mines, never returning home with the anticipated firearms. For those subjects who did comply, though, chiefs collected a tribute or tax in the form of wages, guns, or (stolen) diamonds, though they also occasionally negotiated for improved wages and/or working conditions on behalf of their labor contingents. As such, we can place these African authorities somewhere between “exploitative” and “advocative” on a scale that measures overall human interaction. Chiefs could also withdraw their subjects when threats materialized on the home front, which gutted the African labor force on the mines and, thereby, crippled production. For example, in 1876, the Pedi paramount chief, Sekhukhune, summoned his men back from the diamond fields as part of a successful riposte to Boer hostility. Following the departure of roughly six thousand workers/defenders from May to July of that year, the overall African labor force on the mines was cut in half. Four years later, the outbreak of the Gun War in Basutoland provoked a similar exodus of some four thousand Sotho laborers. Their departure brought the mines to a standstill and prompted mineowners to look further north for workers in order to reduce their dependence on “unreliable local labor.”[27]During this early period of mining, migrant labor, though increasingly important, was neither vital to African societies nor was it forcibly imposed on them by mining capital. Rather, it grew out of existing social relationships within rural economies whose participants were now strategically responding to the new opportunities on the mines.
For these migrants who, over time, trekked to the mines from ever-further distances, a world unlike any they had previously experienced awaited them. In the 1870s, white labor touts (recruiters) offering employment on the mines often intercepted Africans as they approached Kimberley. An account from this decade from a white observer describes what the weary migrants may have looked like as they encountered the recruiters (figure 4):
Figure 4. Africans seeking work on the mines. From Gardner F. Williams, The Diamond Mines of South Africa: Some Account of Their Rise and Development (London: Macmillan, 1902), 188
Some stalked proudly over the veld in the full plumage of the Zulu veteran, with flowing ox-tail girdles, armlets, and anklets, decked with waving feathers and gleaming ear-rings and bracelets. Others . . . in greasy red shakos, faded blouses, and other cast-off equipments of soldiers and hunters. So the parade ran down to the barest loin cloth or utter nakedness, through leopard skin wraps, dirty karosses, ragged breeches, t
attered shirts, and every other meager covering of the native hunter or shepherd. Some of this drift to the mines tramped more than 1,000 miles over mountain ridges and sun-scorched veld, swimming through rivers, scrambling down steep ravines, and plunging deep in mud and desert sand, to reach their goal, as many did, gaunt skeletons of men, with bleeding feet, and bodies scratched and sore and tottering with weariness and hunger.[28]
If the touts failed to sign them up, the migrants found work on their own, often after consulting with others from their home areas regarding the best wages and working conditions available. Fortunately, we are afforded some insight into this process courtesy of Z. K. Matthews, a well-educated son of a mine worker: “My father used to tell us of the time he worked as a laborer in the diamond mine and this lore was a constant topic when relatives, come to Kimberley to work in one of the mines, would stop with us for a while. . . . The talk then would be about the different mines, the merits of this or that labor boss, how this one was rough, that one easier, and this one a hard driver, that one a little fairer in his dealings with the men.”[29]Only in rare circumstances did a glut of African labor exist on the mines, thereby forcing desperate migrants to accept less attractive wages and working conditions. In even rarer cases, a labor surplus could preclude employment altogether for some migrants due to the inability of the industry to absorb them.
During the first half of the 1870s, migrant workers typically committed to only one- or two-month contracts to retain their flexibility in the labor market. These workers often took advantage of the competitive demand for African labor by regularly swapping one employer for another. By adopting this strategy, they were able to quintuple their average wages between 1871 and 1875—much to the chagrin of claim holders, whose wage bills could constitute over 85 percent of their average operating costs and over 50 percent of their combined working and living expenses. African laborers were indispensable to the growth of the mines, though, and both parties seemed to recognize this fact. Despite the resultant animosity directed at them by many white residents, the long-serving De Beers manager, Gardner F. Williams, offered a favorable assessment of African talent and industry: “Those who have thought Africans lazy, indolent, beer-drinking beings, should visit the diamond mines . . . and they will get a new impression of the working capacity of these despised black men. The natives working in the diamond mines, if they are old hands in the service, are uniformly active and industrious men, while natives fresh from the kraals are soon taught their duties, which they learn to perform with nearly as much skill as most European miners.”[30]Quite simply, white claim holders needed this form of inexpensive labor, else they would have had to divert themselves from key tasks, including pumping away any obstructive water, differentiating diamonds from similar-looking stones on sorting tables and procuring supplies and equipment. As such, during this period, each white claim holder on the river diggings employed roughly five African laborers, while those based on the dry diggings were utilizing, on average, twenty or more. Indigenous labor had become the backbone of the growing industry.
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