During this early stage of the industry’s development, the length of time that African migrants remained on the mines generally corresponded with the distance they had traveled to reach the diamond fields, for example, three to six months for those who had traveled at least five hundred miles, four to eight for those coming from further afield, and correspondingly less for those whose homelands were closer.[31]Africans also regularly withdrew their labor, returning home according to agricultural cycles, to respond to a headman’s summons, or, most commonly, after sufficient funds had been earned to purchase a rifle. For example, ethnic Pedi, who made up the majority of wage laborers in the 1870s, typically departed for home roughly six months after their arrival. These early migrants were clearly not divorced from the rural economy and not (yet) dependent on the mines for their livelihood.
Over time, however, this migratory labor force did become semipermanent, giving rise to a budding proletariat. By the end of the 1870s, for example, the diamond fields featured a resident African population of roughly 9,000, though many more workers continued to migrate to and from the mines each year. Eventually, the emergence of consolidated diamond enterprises would both stabilize and constrain this burgeoning community of African laborers, forcing them into mining compounds, standardizing their wages, and generally dictating the terms of their labor engagement. Although African workers consequently lost much of their labor freedom and flexibility, improved living and working conditions typically accompanied these developments. At the same time, these companies’ relentless quest to harvest more diamonds increasingly drove operations further and further underground, and thereby generated increased occupational risks.
Deepening Racial Discrimination and the Eventual Transition to a “More Orderly West”
Although the Black Flag Rebellion of 1875 constituted the most sensational challenge to regional opportunities and protections for Africans, their situation was already deteriorating prior to the uprising. Combining to restrict the range of permissible activities for Africans in and around the mines were disgruntled and increasingly hostile white diggers; emerging companies eager to harness indigenous labor; the conclusion of the tenure of Richard Southey, the sympathetic lieutenant-governor of the Cape; and laws that targeted Africans due to their alleged widespread involvement in diamond theft and illegal buying and selling (popularly known by the loosely acronymic term “IDB”). Eventually, these pressures forced Africans into “locations,” whereby they became a reliable labor pool. In sum, racial discrimination against blacks was exhibited, justified, and ultimately codified. Africans were consequently left with few remunerative possibilities, other than employment with one of the companies that had come to dominate the mining landscape by the end of the 1870s. This process of heightened control stabilized the region, setting the stage for a long period of Pax De Beers, during which the mining behemoth came to manage virtually every aspect of life on the diamond fields.
Although each of the developments that restricted Africans’ endeavors in Kimberley was racially motivated, the Black Flag “rebels” arguably posed the greatest threat. British troops were eventually required to subdue these disaffected white miners, but even though they won some of their demands, they remained dissatisfied and increasingly directed their ire at the black community. At issue was their insistence that the Cape Colony’s “master-servant” ordinance be applied locally. In its absence, these white diggers roamed the streets of Kimberley harassing blacks, “vigilante style,” in an attempt to teach them “the proper subordination and deference required of servile races in colonial societies.”[32]White claim holders resented the black claim holders, who were naturally engaged in competition with them. African laborers who accepted wages that were far below the rates that desperate white miners were seeking, as well as those Africans who stole diamonds from their white employers’ claims, also fueled the racial hostility. Ultimately, though, discontented white diggers’ deepest concerns lay with the companies that were increasingly buying up individual claims on the more bountiful mines and driving small operators out of business. By persecuting Africans, they were simply (re)directing their frustrations toward a more immediate, more vulnerable target.
Even those Africans who weren’t directly involved in mining saw their economic prospects dim because of a cloud of racially motivated sentiments and developments. Boer farmers gradually squeezed out members of nearby African communities who had been provisioning the mines. The emerging mining enterprises also contributed to these Africans’ demise by arranging for more distant, yet less expensive, goods for their operations. African chiefs and headmen also experienced a similar decline in their fortunes. In the years following the initial diamond discoveries, these regional leaders had successfully limited white rushers’ access to diamondiferous areas under their control and benefited from the wages that migrant workers repatriated, often in the form of firearms and fees. However, as time passed, these headmen similarly found themselves on the wrong side of the racial divide. With so much wealth latent in the Kimberley soil, these once-proud leaders were eventually reduced to mere labor suppliers or were swept aside altogether by the powerful forces at play.
The Disempowerment of an African Chief: The Story of Nicolaas Waterboer
No case better exemplifies the shifting power dynamics, social disruption, and marginalization of African leaders in the region than that of Nicolaas Waterboer, a Griqua chief. Just prior to the Eureka discovery, in 1866, Waterboer had been comfortable enough with the regional state of affairs to agree to cede a portion of the land he oversaw, near where the Vaal feeds into the Orange River, to the developer of a prospective white settlement project. Although Waterboer did harbor concerns about the border region between the lands he controlled, known as Griqualand, and the neighboring Orange Free State, local matters were otherwise generally quiet. By 1872, however, Waterboer’s lands had been confiscated and soon afterward he found himself arrested and imprisoned, eventually fading into historical obscurity.
Long before these tragic developments reached fruition, as with just about everyone else in the region, Waterboer had been attempting to capitalize on the new mineral discoveries. As early as 1868, his subjects were actively hunting for diamonds, confirming that the chief recognized how he might secure a portion of this newfound wealth. Claiming absolute entitlement, Waterboer insisted that his Griqua followers turn over any mineral findings to him so that he could arrange for their sale. But Waterboer’s subjects increasingly began selling their finds to others to maximize their own profits. For example, in October of 1868, the local civil commissioner, W. B. Chalmers, commented, “I have just seen another diamond, brought in by a Griqua . . . purchased from him by one of the shopkeepers here. . . . Now that the Griquas are making a regular search for them [diamonds] they are turning up sharp. . . . But they are very sly with them, and keep them very secret, for fear of Waterboer claiming them.”[33]The buyers of these stones were foreigners, who had seemingly materialized in the region overnight.
Increasingly disregarded by his subjects, Waterboer steadily began to realize that he could not effectively exploit the mineral wealth that his territory featured. Consequently, by the end of 1868, he had signed a deed of concession for all “diamonds, metals, and minerals . . . found in his dominions” to a private mining concern. The concession was to last thirty years and the headman was slated to receive one-fifteenth of the gross revenue from the sale of any diamonds harvested. Lest Waterboer appear to have been solely concerned about his personal wealth, the agreement also prohibited the concessionaires from selling intoxicating beverages to his followers.
The concessionary agreement effectively marked the onset of a long period of economic marginalization for Waterboer’s people. In early 1869, for example, before the concessionary company even began operations, a Griqua herdsman derogatorily referred to as “Swartboy” (literally, “black boy”) found an 83.5-carat diamond, later coined “The Star of South Africa.” Swartboy proceeded
to sell it, receiving ample livestock in return, rather than turn it over to Waterboer. Yet the concessionary company now had legal rights to the stone and eventually sued for it. Thus, in just two short years following the discovery of the Eureka Diamond, indigenous residents of Griqualand had lost the right to pick up a stone on which they might literally be standing, legally claim it as their own, and then sell it. There were to be no more “Swartboys.”
With the diamond rush now in full swing, Waterboer feared a hostile takeover of his territory by the Orange Free State and, therefore, requested British protection for Griqualand. Great Britain, eager to consolidate access to the diamond wealth for the Crown and concerned that the Free Staters might close the highly lucrative trading route to the north, annexed not only the area around the diamond fields but also a considerable portion of Waterboer’s land, giving birth to the colony of Griqualand West in October 1871. By the end of that year, a key portion of the richest diamond-bearing territory in the world had been added to the long list of British colonial possessions. Even among this extensive catalog of territories, this one shone “particularly brightly.” Shortly thereafter, in 1876, Waterboer was imprisoned after attempting to free some of his subjects from a prison work gang whom he believed had been wrongfully detained and badly treated. His political enfeeblement was complete following his subsequent retirement to distant Griqualand East. Once there, he allegedly survived as a handyman, swept into historical irrelevance by the tremendous forces that Jacobs’s seemingly innocent discovery had unleashed.
Enforcing the Law: The Pass System and IDB
Waterboer’s rapid decline in fortune illustrates the powerful confluence of international and local, political and economic forces in and around Kimberley. Yet African mine workers were not nearly as concerned with abstract influences on regional developments as they were with much more immediate, daily challenges, such as the pass system. Instituted in 1872, but initially only laxly enforced, the pass scheme obliged Africans to register upon arriving on the diamond fields. Through the imposition of registration fees, this system was devised to generate revenue. But it also generated cheap labor, as incoming migrants who failed to register were imprisoned and subsequently offered up as convict labor. Not all Africans, though, were subject to the pass system. Exempted were those migrants whom local officials subjectively categorized as “civilized.” These fortunate few were educated, often Christian, and displayed “Western” manners, as opposed to “tribal” styles and habits. A commissioner’s report from 1876 reveals the divergent treatment that “civilized” and “uncivilized” Africans might receive: “There are many natives, half-castes, and others from the Colony, who are honest, intelligent and respectable men and these must of course be treated in every way similar to the whites, but the great mass of the laboring colored population consists of raw Kaffirs [a disparaging term for black Africans], who come from the interior with every element of barbarism, and no touch of civilization among them. . . . They must be treated as children incapable of governing themselves.”[34]Predictably, in this increasingly racist context, the vast majority of migrants were deemed “uncivilized.” The mid-1870s also marks the point at which authorities began taking enforcement of the pass system more seriously: pass law arrests jumped from 95 in 1875 to 971 the following year. Police regularly required Africans to produce their passes while in town and often raided areas that featured significant black populations. Although it was impossible to apprehend all offenders owing to the large numbers of Africans present, the unpredictability of these aggressive police tactics created a climate of fear and insecurity. South Africa’s “Wild West” finally had its metaphorical sheriff and team of deputies attempting to impose order, though this particular brand of justice was racially tinted.
For all of the energy that was spent enacting and enforcing the pass system, illegal diamond buying and selling (IDB) was of even greater concern for local officials. Despite rampant white involvement in buying, selling, and stealing illicit stones, enforcement policies and practices squarely targeted Africans. Over time, authorities presumed every black resident was involved in IDB in some fashion or another. In practice, the suspicion and racial hostility that eventually precipitated the spate of legal and policing measures intended to curb IDB were evident from the commencement of mining. As early as 1872, for example, white diggers were arguing that Africans should not be allowed to own claims because, as owners, they were legally entitled to sell diamonds. This right could, it was argued, enable Africans to fence diamonds that their black “brothers” (suggesting a racial unity that certainly did not exist at this point, if ever) had stolen, or allegedly would steal, from white claim owners. Although Africans were undoubtedly participating in the outflow of illicit stones in 1872—and well beyond that date—these allegations were clearly racially motivated.
The changing means by which IDB diamonds left Kimberley were well known. Prior to 1875, it was common for a purchaser of stolen diamonds to buy straight from individual mine laborers without the intervention of intermediaries. Going forward, African workers began selling stolen stones, often at rates well below market value, to diamond “touts,” who would frequent canteens, compounds, locations, and jails. The stones would subsequently travel up a chain of buyers and sellers, the links of which were most discernible in the early stages, before eventually fading to obscurity. An alternative, and even more devious, system featured the deliberate placement of dishonest African employees in the mines whose sole object was to steal diamonds and bring them to their “real master.” It should be noted that regardless of the particular ploy involved, IDB almost always required cooperation across racial lines.
From the 1880s on, the government instituted increasingly aggressive measures to curtail IDB in Kimberley. By this time, the practice had become so regionally prevalent that it was jokingly referred to in both formal and informal settings as “the prevailing industry.” In response, a Special Court was established in 1880 to handle diamond theft cases. The presiding Special Magistrate could dole out penalties of up to fifteen years imprisonment, fines of £1,000, banishment from Griqualand West and, for black offenders, flogging as well. Two years later, the sweeping Diamond Trade Act upheld an 1880 initiative that introduced trial without jury for IDB defendants. The act also granted law enforcement officers broad search and seizure powers, created an investigative department for IDB activities, and required blacks, if so ordered, to work naked and submit to body searches.
Collectively, these measures turned any presumption of “innocence until proven guilty” on its head, especially as it pertained to Africans in Kimberley. By this time, authorities were taking this form of criminal activity so seriously that when an African curiously known as “Bloody Fool” killed his wife with a crowbar, “the murder was considered secondary to his alleged IDB offense”![35]Each and every African—“civilized,” or not—was now presumed to be participating in this parallel, shadow industry. According to the committee that founded Kimberley’s IDB investigative force in the 1880s, “Many natives register themselves to Companies for three to six months, simply for the sake of the pass. Having obtained this, they desert, and are allowed to wander under its protection, and, in a majority of cases, to act as middlemen between the white illicit buyer and the raw native.”[36]Overlooked by this committee was the fact that rival employers regularly encouraged these “raw” workers to desert in exchange for more favorable conditions and higher wages on offer at their operations.
Although Africans were clearly the targets of this series of IDB countermeasures, whites in and around Kimberley were not entirely spared the attentions of the local authorities. For example, the judges presiding over the Special Court periodically invoked the stereotype of the naïve, otherwise honest, African laborer who had been corrupted only after interacting with unscrupulous whites. These Africans were apparently, so the argument went, unable to resist temptation and thus had to be protected by (concerned) whites from themselves. Duri
ng one trial, for example, a certain Judge Laurence posed the following rhetorical question from the bench: “Do we as a community do all that we might do for the Natives whom we attract here in such large numbers and for whose moral as well as material well-being I think we ought to hold ourselves in some measure responsible?”[37]Most whites, however, merely feigned concern or even contrition following these types of abstract admonishments, while staying safely away from at least the front lines of the illicit diamond trade. White participants in IDB—allegedly including the famous Barnato brothers, who would later become some of the wealthiest and most respected industrialists on the mines—typically purchased stones only after they were well removed from their illicit origins. Local shop owners also benefited from the illegal traffic that these stones generated, even if they weren’t actively buying stones. This type of indirect engagement with IDB prompted W. H. Rennie, a Standard Bank inspector in the early years of mining in Kimberley, to comment: “Illicit diamond buying, although being very ruinous to the . . . industry, is remarkably profitable to the storekeepers. It is very rife at present and many hundreds of hands are believed to be engaged in it . . . all of them live in ‘good style,’ at any rate in an ‘expensive style.’”[38] Needless to say, at this time there were no Africans in Kimberley living in either a “good” or an “expensive” style.
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