Jade Davenport - Digging Deep: A History of Mining in South Africa

To say that the mining industry has played a defining role in the course of South Africas history, at least during the last century and a half, would be no great exaggeration. Nowhere else in the world has a mineral revolution proved so influential in weaving the political, economic and social fabric of a society.

When mountains of copper were discovered in the drylands of Namaqualand, many days trek from the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa took its first halting steps towards commercial mining. Nearly two decades later, when a farmers son picked up a mooi klip later to be called the Eureka Diamond people were reluctant to believe that such riches would ever be found in abundance in the dry hinterland of the country. Not long after, the discovery of the 83.5 carat Star of South Africa on the banks of the Vaal River sparked the first of the diamond rushes and the first Diggers Republic.

Digging Deep chronicles South Africas great mineral revolution the lucky strikes and the struggles of prospecting in the late 1800s, the rushes to boom-and-bust towns in the Eastern Transvaal Goldfield, the dubious beginnings of the Witwatersrand (the largest and richest goldfield in the world, with the lowest-grade ore), and the stories of the visionary men like Cecil Rhodes, Alfred Beit, Barney Barnato, Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, Sammy Marks and Hans Merensky who pioneered and shaped the industry on which modern South Africa was built. The author traverses the history of the industry over the course of the 20th century, taking the reader right up to the modern era.

Digging Deep is the only account in a single volume of how South Africas gold, diamonds, platinum, coal and a host of other metals and minerals the richest treasure trove ever discovered in one country transformed a colonial backwater into the greatest industrialised power on the African continent.

Jade Davenport studied at the University of Cape Town and has a MA ( cum laude ) in Historical Studies. She has worked as a journalist, correspondent and columnist for Mining Weekly since 2005.

Digging Deep

A HISTORY OF MINING IN SOUTH AFRICA
18522002

Jade Davenport

Jonathan Ball Publishers

JOHANNESBURG & CAPE TOWN

In Memory of Elsie and Fred Davies

Introduction

T o say that the mining industry has played a defining role in the course of South Africas history, at least during the last century and a half, would be no great exaggeration. Nowhere else in the world has a mineral revolution proved so influential in weaving the political, economic and social fabric of a society.

Before the advent of its great mineral revolution in the latter half of the nineteenth century, South Africa was a mere colonial backwater whose unpromising landscape was seemingly devoid of any economic potential. The regions economy was rudimentary, being almost entirely dependent on a middling agricultural sector, which itself was considerably constrained by harsh climatic conditions and the limited size of the domestic market. It was a land without millions and without millionaires; no man dreamed of making a great fortune in such an unforgiving country.

Yet beneath the surface of an incredibly varied landscape lay the richest mineral treasure trove ever discovered in one country. Almost every precious stone, mineral and metal known to man has been found in deposits varying from mere traces to quantities of enormous value. In fact, South Africa boasts the worlds largest reserves of platinum group metals, chromium, manganese, and vanadium, and is also host to some of the most significant reserves of gold, coal, diamonds, iron ore, titanium, andalusite, fluorspar and vermiculite.

The reason why South Africa is so well endowed with such a wide variety of mineral resources is that the heart of the country overlies the Kaapvaal Craton, which is perhaps the most ancient nucleus of continental crust. Because this section of the Earths crust dates back to the early Achaean times, or 3,7 billion years ago, it has undergone far more cycles of magmatic intrusion, sedimentation, metamorphism, and deformation all processes that facilitate the deposition of ore reserves of varying richness than younger landmasses. Indeed the significant age of the craton is the very reason why all of South Africas minerals, except coal, are at least twice as old as most rocks exposed in Europe or the Americas.

It was the uncovering of pockets of that incredibly rich treasure trove that completely transformed the economic prospects of the region. In a world where every single item consumed by man is either mined or farmed a statement that is as true today as it was 100 years ago the significance of South Africas vast and varied mineral resource is only too apparent. Moreover, the discoveries were made at a time when the worlds economy was undergoing rapid industrialisation and becoming increasingly connected through expanding trade networks and in a region that was firmly under the dominance of Britain at the height of its imperial influence.

It was the intensive exploitation of copper, followed by diamonds, gold and coal in the latter half of the nineteenth century, that ultimately catapulted South Africas backward economy into the modern, industrialised era. For the first time, the country had commodities that the rest of the world desperately required and it was on the back of the export of tonnages of its natural wealth that it was not only able to diversify its economy but also to industrialise at a rate and on a scale unprecedented on the African continent. Most importantly, the mineral revolution enabled the introduction of an aggressively organised and racially dominated form of industrial capitalism, an economic system that dominated South Africas socio-political and fiscal arena for more than a century.

This narrative presents a historical overview of the discovery of South Africas mineral wealth and the subsequent establishment and growth of a giant mining industry over the course of 150 years. It tracks the development of the industry, starting with the establishment of the first commercial mine in Namaqualand in the Northern Cape in 1852. It then covers the more familiar history of the discovery of diamonds and gold in the 1860s and 1870s and the subsequent development of those industries. It also elaborates on the industrialisation of the economy that was sparked by the mineral revolution as well as the diversification of the sector that occurred during the twentieth century when commodities such as coal, iron ore, platinum and uranium began to be exploited on a steadily increasing scale. Moreover, this history seeks to explain how a very ruthless form of organised and, in one specific case, monopoly capital came to dominate South Africas mining sector.

The concluding date chosen for this history is 2002, not only because it marks the 150th anniversary of the advent of commercial mining in South Africa, but also because it was in that year that the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act was promulgated. That new legislative dispensation aimed to transform the South African mining industry through a broad-based socio-economic policy of equal access to mineral resources that had been the exclusive preserve of one racial group for more than a century. However, because the process of transforming the South African mining industry by means of the application of a black economic empowerment policy is still under way, it is an aspect of the industry that should be commented on by analysts and journalists and reflected upon by a future generation of historians.