BY MICHELINA ANDREUCCI
The diamond rush in south Africa began with the story of a farming family named Jacobs near the Orange River. Their son Erasmus and his sister would pick up pretty stones along the banks of the river and play with them (much as we did as children). In 1866 the children found a small white
pebble which Erasmus showed to his father, who in turn showed it to a neighbouring farmer who found the stone fascinating and offered to buy it from the Jacobs’ family, who, not realising its value, simply gave it to him without payment. The stone was in fact a 21.24 carat diamond that came to be named the “Eureka” Diamond.
Soon after the children’s discovery the Continent became the main stage for the West’s dramatic enrichment from the plundering of Africa’s vast resources, which had already begun long before the Scramble for Africa, which culminated in 1880, between Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
At that time the interior of South Africa was a wilderness; known only to big game hunters and rural Boer farmers whose farms measuring thousands of acres each, spread across the immense desolate country. Throughout the second quarter of the 18th Century the Voortrekker Boers abandoned their settlements in the Northern Cape Colony to journey through the vast plains between the Orange and the Vaal Rivers of South Africa, where they were met by Mzilikazi and his band of renegades, who had themselves fled from Tshaka Zulu’s tyranny, and instigated a new tyranny beyond his reach.
The Orange Free State was a republic of pastoral farmers governed patriarchally by President Brand.
To the north-east lay the Transvaal, another republic of the same kind. To the north was the land of the Griquas and Bechuanas, to the west lay the land of the Namaquas and the Kalahari Desert (Namibia). Some deemed the ‘Country of Diamonds’ belonged to a Griqua Chief (Tswanas); others alleged the area belonged to the Republic of the Orange Free State. Meanwhile the Republic of Transvaal was making their own obscure claims to the area. Disputes inevitably arose as to the ownership of this hitherto unwanted land.
At the time of the diamond discovery, before the arrival of Rhodes, the British Government took over the barren vast area between the Vaal and the Orange Rivers that they thought was worthless land with “ . . . neither bush nor grass . . . and little frequented even by wild game . . . ” The land was worth a few shillings per thousand acres, yet there were no takers.
The Dutch farmer was primitive and ignorant, albeit hospitable. He lived on his sheep and cattle farms; he wore leather breeches and shoes of untanned hide; his vrouw (wife/woman) made soap and candles from mutton fat and he made his fire from the fold’s trampled dung. These farmers divided the country between them of farms from 15 000– 40 000 acres; except in the parts they thought to be useless, or where the indigenous people were too strong to be driven out.
The Vaal River made a pleasant oasis in this vast, dry, desolate desert; its banks were umbrageous with yellow-wood, acacias and willows. It was here, in the river gravel, that the first diamonds were found in January 1870, by the prospecting party to which Herbert Rhodes belonged.
Trapped in geologic basins as in Brazil, West Africa and Zimbabwe, diamonds were released from their host rocks deep in the Earth then transported by rivers such as the Orange and Vaal Rivers in South Africa, and the Benguela Longshore Current, where they were panned for like gold.
The find was sensational from the beginning! The richness of South Africa’s alluvial deposits of the Vaal and Orange Rivers eventually led to the discovery of kimberlite and the famous workings around Kimberley, establishing kimberlite as the primary volcanic host of diamonds.
By 1871 “diamond fever” was spreading across the southern region of South Africa with great promises of fame and fortune for everyone. The Rhodes brothers were soon involved in the rush to exploit South Africa’s diamond and gold deposits; but unlike many prospectors and speculators who wandered around dazed and luckless, the Rhodes brothers’ diamond claim proved fruitful.
Soon sailors deserted their ships, soldiers deserted their regiments, Boer settlers left their farms, workmen broke their contracts, and tradesmen sold their stores. Citizens everywhere were organising themselves into little ‘companies’ of 4-16 persons; all were going up-country, by any means of transportation; from ox wagons to Cape carts, horseback or walking.
The entire world was going that way. Diggers came from all over.
From Australia and America; the English countryside and universities, and from Whitechapel the home of Barney Barnato; people surged ceaselessly in great droves to Africa’s diamond fields to what they dreamed to be their fortunes.
Dr. Michelina Andreucci is a Zimbabwean-Italian researcher, and is a published author in her field. For Comments E-mail: inamanucci@gmail.com
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