Kimberley

(In front of the Big Hole)

History

By the 1870s, the South Africa interior was taking on some modern characteristics. Boer farmers had populated and appropriated large portions of the land, and had declared independent republics in the Transvaal and trans-Orange regions. The British had consolidated control in the western Cape and in the Natal province around Durban. Khoisan Africans were completely marginalized and had seen their populations dramatically reduced. And the black African civilizations were in the process of being subdued.

Then, in 1871, two farm children discovered a diamond on the banks of the Orange river.
In the following decade, the region around Kimberley experienced a diamond boom. Prospectors from across the globe flocked to Kimberley, staked a claim, and started digging. Those who "hit it big" bought more claims, and began to hire laborers from amongst the black population.

Kimberley, as a town, flourished. By the early 1880s it had the first electric streetlights in the southern hemisphere. It soon had streetcars, saloons, banks, and mansions for a lucky few.

Diamond Mining and De Beers
The individual claims were originally staked at about fifteen feet on a side, with the claimant owning the vertical rights to the claim. And since the diamonds were underground, that meant that you had to dig. And since some diggers were faster than others, there was soon a chaotic jigsaw of holes and bridges and guywires across the main diamond site. Cave-ins were common. And the deeper holes began to fill with water. What's more, by the early 1880s the easy digging near the surface was finished, and few diamonds were found in the harder "blue earth" underneath. Small operators or individuals began to sell off their claims.

(The Big Hole today)

Through the 1880s, this consolidation of claims created a handful of major operators, each "hiring" labor from African tribes and each struggling to stay ahead of his peers. Finally, Cecil Rhodes managed to buy out all the remaining operators (using loans financed from Rothschild bankers in London) and formed De Beers Consolidated in 1888. As the "blue earth" was found to contain lots of diamonds, De Beers, via their local monopoly on Kimberley diamonds, effectively gained control of the global diamond market.

Boer War
Kimberley, as an English town in the middle of the Boer interior, and as a tranport hub (the British, of course, built roads and then railroads to Kimberley as its importance grew), became an easy target for the Boers during the Anglo-Boer war in 1899. The siege of Kimberley lasted four months before the British were able to raise it, from November 1899 to February 1900. The siege is perhaps most famous for the "Long Cecil" a six-pound cannon designed by an American working for Rhodes and built in the De Beers workshops in town. The local British garrison had only small weapons while the encircling Boers had artillery, so the "Long Cecil" was built using the tools at hand. That it actually worked was quite remarkable, given that there were no gun-making tools (or expertise) in Kimberley at the time.


(The original Long Cecil)

Modern history and Big Hole
Unlike ostrich feathers, diamonds have never gone out of fashion, and De Beers careful manipulation of the diamond market has ensured that Kimberley has remained fairly prosperous throughout the 20th century. Today it is a fairly sizable modern city, with continuing mining operations in the area. Tourism is significant, with lots of markers to nearby battlefields and guided tours of the "Kimberley Big Five" the five large holes in which open mining of diamonds took place.

The premier attraction, however, is the Big Hole. The site of the original diamond digging by individual claimants, De Beers continued mining the site until 1914. In the end, it became the largest hand-dug hole in the world, with hand digging from the surface down to almost 300m in depth, and underground digging (via shafts) continuing to a depth of 1000m. Today the Big Hole is partially filled with debris and water, and there is no longer any mining at the site. In all, 2.7 tonnes of diamonds were harvested from 22 million tonnes of rock.

(Big Hole statistics)

De Beers dominated the diamond market in the 20th century. Savvy marketing ("A diamond is forever"), the absence of a secondary diamond market, and supply constraints meant that they could largely control the price of retail diamonds. While their control has been challenged in recent years by other diamond producers (mostly in Russia), they remain the largest player in the global diamond business.