Stones of Contention

by Cleveland, Todd

  It is no part of my purpose to dispense encomiums on any particular company, but Akwatia is so outstanding in every way that some account of this mine may prove of value to others. . . . The mine is adequately equipped with a hospital and dispensary. At the different plants I visited I was interested to see the baths where the boys bathe and change their clothes when leaving work. The most impressive thing of all . . . is the way the ground is leveled again after it has been worked . . . and there is a repatriation scheme for boys who are sick and whose repatriation is recommended by the Medical Officer.[81]

  Although these (self-)congratulatory comments should be read with a certain amount of skepticism, the relatively superior conditions that prevailed on the diamond mines, versus other labor settings and especially the gold exploitations, appear to be beyond dispute. Indeed, observers of all types, including colonial and international officials, were consistently, and seemingly thoroughly, impressed with the health standards on the Gold Coast’s commercial diamond mines.

  (Un)just Rewards: Workers’ Compensation

  Colonial-era diamond-mining enterprises typically paid out above-average wages to African employees and also provided a series of other benefits, including health care, access to subsidized items and goods, and, at times, occupational training and/or general educational opportunities. For example, in West Africa, both CAST and SLST offered competitive wages, rewarded long service, provided free housing and medical care for its African staff, and assisted with food supplies. Similarly, in South West Africa, diamond companies offered the highest wages available to Africans and began providing pensions in the early 1970s in response to worker demands. The competition for African labor, often from agricultural employers and other types of mining operations, required that diamond enterprises offer superior wages in order to attract and retain employees. Given the consistently high price of diamonds during much of the colonial era, the companies could easily cover these elevated wage bills.

  These mining enterprises could have done much more, though, regarding wages and benefits. For example, although CDM traditionally paid out the highest wages available to indigenous laborers in all of South West Africa, as of the 1970s it was spending only about a tenth of its net profits on workers’ salaries. The wages for African employees were even lower than those on offer in South Africa, where 30 to 40 percent of workers’ compensation was paid in remuneration; the comparable figure for the mandate was roughly only half that. Even in West Africa, where wages were relatively high, the colonial governments and regional mining companies colluded to manipulate and maintain wage levels. In sum, although wages for African laborers on the diamond mines during the colonial period were, on average, higher than those offered by competing industries, they don’t tell the entire story.

  Race Relations on Colonial-Era Mines: The South West Africa Case

  Racially motivated policies and practices profoundly shaped the interactions between whites and blacks on colonial-era mines. White staff members adhered to the racial boundaries that applied in the broader colonial society, although they also often acted as mediators and were certainly not uniformly hostile. Race relations on diamond mines generally improved over time, although the Cape Colony’s racist “Masters and Servants ordinance” continued to echo across the continent throughout the colonial period.

  In South West Africa, the mines were deeply affected by the racial attitudes and practices that prevailed in Kimberley, and, for more than four decades, beginning in the 1940s, they operated under the shadow of apartheid that the regime in Pretoria cast across the border. Even before South Africa’s assumption of control of the territory, German colonial labor policy was strongly informed by “the methods of the Boers towards the kaffirs,” that is, the repressive approach to African labor as codified and practiced in the Cape Colony.[82]After World War I, the newly formed League of Nations “mandated” the former German colony to South Africa, and its new mine bosses imported even harsher managerial practices from next door. For example, they regularly highlighted ethnic differences within the African labor force in an effort to preclude racial unity and, on some mines, addressed black workers solely by their employment number in an effort to strip them of their identity. In this atmosphere, it comes as no surprise that in 1924, over fifty black mine workers in South West Africa died of scurvy—an easily preventable disease. Even into the 1970s, mine managers were still being accused of treating their black workers as “inferior children” and denying them key benefits such as sick leave, job advancement opportunities, and spousal accompaniment. During a 1976 interview, an African mining employee of CDM expressed his dissatisfaction as follows: “The working conditions at CDM: I don’t say they are good at all and I say this because of the general attitude of the whites who are dominant. The law system is a hiding place for the company. The whites say ‘we’re just here on business and have no say in the apartheid law.’”[83]Or as another former contract worker put it: “Men in this compound are jailed. They have no right to speak their problems. Men are mourning and sorrowful. Stories outside the compound say ‘the people are feeling happy and all is going well!’ Never!”[84] Although the situation improved somewhat over time, racial discrimination would only substantially subside following the dismantlement of the apartheid system in South Africa and the creation of the independent state of Namibia in 1990.[85]

  Diamond Mining and the Decolonization Process

  The conclusion of the colonial era in Africa, a process that stretched from the 1950s to the 1970s over most of the continent, and the ensuing end of apartheid in South Africa and South West Africa (Namibia) prompted significant changes within the African diamond-mining industry. No longer would black workers have to endure formalized and legally sanctioned racism at the hands of white mine managers. Although many mining enterprises, including De Beers and its stable of affiliated mines and companies, survived the political transitions intact, other corporate operations were nationalized or simply disintegrated in the face of civil conflict, as happened in Angola, the DRC, and Sierra Leone (see chapter 7). These volatile and often violent settings rendered formal commercial mining impossible. Consequently, many former employees opted to mine artisanally or, worse, were forced to do so at gunpoint by members of rebel movements or authorities of the newly independent African states.

  By again turning our attention to South West Africa, we are afforded an interesting example of how diamond-mining considerations featured in the decolonization process. During the buildup to political independence in the mandate, the prospect of nationalization certainly weighed heavily on the minds of mining company officials, many of whom feared the worst. But because self-rule came only in 1990, the government-to-be and the diamond-mining companies had ample time to engage with each other.

  The dominant nationalist organization, the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), rightly identified the mandate’s mines as key sites of exploitation and wealth appropriation. The organization regularly articulated sentiments of this nature and also actively courted African mine workers. With its recognition by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972 as the “sole legitimate representative” of the Namibian people, SWAPO had a reasonably strong hand to play. Regardless, the government and a number of mining corporations continued to deem the organization relatively innocuous. At CDM in the 1970s, for example, the company permitted SWAPO branches to hold public meetings at worker hostels every four months. In 1978, Harry Oppenheimer, then head of Anglo American, CDM’s parent company, held talks with SWAPO leaders to better understand what types of mining policies the independence party might institute once in control of the country. Although the nationalist organization indicated that it intended to take a 70 percent stake in the diamond industry, SWAPO’s representatives insisted that a decision would be made only after “judicious negotiations” between an independent Namibian government, Anglo American, and the other diamond companies with interests in the country, and that, eventually, “the peop
le would decide.” Ultimately, the people didn’t really decide. However, SWAPO leaders and the array of mining interests did work to reach an agreement that benefited all parties, including the thousands of African laborers who daily toiled on the country’s mines.

  African diamond mine workers endured extremely difficult conditions during much of the twentieth century, as most of the continent suffered under the grip of European colonialism. Mining companies assigned African laborers the most arduous tasks, paid wages that were incommensurate with workers’ contributions, and generally limited professional advancement. Yet these laborers hardly accepted their fate lying down. African employees employed a range of strategies to improve their plight and, via their actions, even prompted some employers to make meaningful improvements. Overall conditions on the continent’s diamond mines only began to significantly improve, however, following the conclusion of the colonial period and, in South and South West Africa, the end of the apartheid era. In the next chapter, the focus remains on the diamond mines of colonial Africa, but centers African laborers—rather than colonial states, mining enterprises, and traditional authorities—and, in particular, the strategic and innovative ways that that these workers negotiated the challenging environments in which they toiled.

  6: The Experiences of African Workers on Colonial-Era Mines

  Death does not choose; famine chooses. . . .

  I am going to De Beers. . . .

  Lad, the day I am going, I mount to ride away,

  A woman of witchcraft was already hard at work;

  I saw her early going to the graveyard,

  She puts on a string skirt fastened with knots,

  She takes the arm of the corpse and waves it,

  A mouthful of blood, she spits into the air,

  She says, “Men gone to De Beers.

  They can come home dead from the mines.”

  To me . . .

  I am not dead; even now I still live,

  I am a wanderer of the mines.

  —Song that migrant laborers from Lesotho sang en route to the South African diamond mines

  In the period from 1920 to 1970, conditions were very, very poor. . . . At the world’s richest diamond mine, the majority of people who worked there were simply being exploited, and De Beers grew very, very rich as a result.

  —Gordon Brown,[86]former senior manager of the Oranjemund diamond mine in South West Africa (Namibia), 1990

  If Gordon Brown’s statement underscores the exploitation that characterized colonial-era diamond mining, the lyrics that make up the first quotation capture African workers’ resiliency: I am not dead; even now I still live, / I am a wanderer of the mines. Although most colonial diamond-mining operations were highly organized, reasonably orderly affairs and thus bore little resemblance to the “Wild West” scenario of early Kimberley, they invariably featured exacting conditions for the African laborers, or “wanderers,” who toiled for them. Mine workers throughout the continent met these daily challenges—both during their shifts and “after the whistle blew”—by employing a number of efficacious strategies, reminiscent of their South African counterparts. For example, in colonies featuring forced labor schemes, Africans often fled ahead of mining recruiters or, later, once on the job. Conversely, in settings where employment was voluntary, Africans concentrated their efforts on attenuating and overcoming the daily challenges that they faced. Worker strategies could be as simple as singing to propel themselves through taxing days, as furtive as diamond theft, or as confrontational as formal trade union activity.

  This chapter continues the examination of colonial-era mines begun in the preceding chapter but shifts the perspective away from colonial administrations, mining companies, and indigenous headmen to focus instead on the experiences of the African workers who engaged with the various diamond operations. Although these “wanderers of the mines” operated in demanding labor environments, they actively shaped their plights by pursuing a range of creative strategies intended to improve their lives. And, as the song lyrics suggest, they may well have cheated death in the process.

  The Motivations and Experiences of Migrant Diamond Miners

  Faced with the combined pressure that imperial regimes, powerful mining enterprises, and acquiescent headmen exerted, it’s no wonder that millions of Africans migrated to diamond-mining locations during the colonial period. Local migratory traditions, population densities, and livelihood possibilities shaped the nature and volume of this constant outflow from rural to industrial areas. Recruits and, in some settings, family members, traveled to these mines over varying distances, in varying numbers, and via various types of transportation. This exodus affected individual communities differently, primarily depending on how long migrant workers remained on the mines and how much in cash or goods they returned with or were able to remit. No one was to return home empty-handed.

  African residents of small communities located near diamond deposits typically had the most agreeable engagements with mining operations. These individuals often became “favored employees” on the mines, as corporate bosses regularly granted them and their local brethren the best jobs available to Africans. Moreover, these residents enjoyed a type of geographic and geological serendipity: the mining enterprises at their doorsteps provided a ready source for cash, and the proximity of the deposits also precluded both long treks and separation from families.

  When local communities were sizable, however, residents often needed to be prodded—via coercion, enticement, or both—to work on the mines. Indeed, the very presence of a significant population meant that ample, sustainable livelihood possibilities already existed in the area. Such was the case in the Tshikapa region of the Belgian Congo, the location of Forminière’s flagship operations. This area sustained populations of ethnic Penda and Chokwe, who were primarily farmers, but who also traded ivory, rubber, beeswax, hides, and fish. Yet many of these residents also worked for Forminière because they could engage casually with the company and thus maintain their existing livelihoods. Raymond Buell, an American who visited the area during a 1925 tour of Africa, observed that “when one finds a Company which employs casual laborers—that is, natives who sign no contract but may come and go when they like—it may be assumed that such a company had not invoked compulsion to obtain such labor. Apparently the only large company in the Congo which follows the casual labor system is Forminière. . . . [African] labor willingly seeks employment with this company.”[87]Although Buell’s assessment wasn’t entirely accurate, Forminière’s casual labor policy did attract large numbers of voluntary employees, even if the enterprise relied on different degrees of coercion to secure others.

  When the immediate supply of workers on diamond mines was inadequate, Africans from more distant locations often found themselves the targets of states and mining companies. In South West Africa, for example, ethnic Ovambo residing in the northern zones of the territory would become a primary source of labor for the diamond fields, located hundreds of miles to the south at Lüderitz, which had first opened in 1908. Although German colonial authorities sought to dictate the conduct of these recruits, the Ovambo were able to maintain a certain amount of discretion, in great part due to the colony’s sparse population, that is, limited indigenous labor pool. For example, groups of Ovambo recruits often refused to be split up, and invariably rejected work on white settlers’ farms, where conditions were considerably worse. By the early 1920s, modest streams of Ovambo laborers were flowing southward to the mines, driven by the possibility of accumulating enough capital to purchase cattle during their contract periods.

  In other settings, local labor scarcities similarly worked to the advantage of indigenous residents. In the Gold Coast, for example, the discovery of diamond deposits in 1919 occurred at an inauspicious time in terms of the availability of workers, especially for such a labor-intensive industry. With cocoa farms flourishing and the colonial government also a growing source of employment, indigenous residents had options that we
re preferable to the fledgling diamond industry. Moreover, many Africans chose to work as independent diggers, a right that residents in most other colonial settings did not enjoy. Finally, a meningitis outbreak in 1919 killed an estimated 60,000 Ghanaians. In this difficult labor market, mining employers could not afford to be picky, but prospective African workers certainly could, and were.

  It wasn’t until the mid-1920s that the indigenous labor shortage in the Gold Coast eased. Yet throughout this “labor crisis,” the diamond industry weathered manpower shortages relatively well, in part because the vast majority of these workers originated from beyond the colony’s borders. As word of the opportunities on the diamond mines spread, individuals from the northern savannah regions, such as ethnic Zabrama from Niger, increasingly migrated south to seek employment. Over time, these unskilled migrants, whom southern populations considered “socially inferior,” constituted an astounding 80–85 percent of the mines’ workforce. In exchange for these migrants’ willingness to sell their labor, they were awarded with coveted positions, such as mine overseer. In turn, these workers encouraged, and even paid for, their kinfolk to join them, thereby alleviating some of the financial and psychological deterrents related to traveling so far away. Once there, these migrants typically remained in continuous employment, accumulating leave time over a period of years so that they could return home for extended visits.