Stones of Contention_A History of Africa’s Diamonds Read online

  Stones of Contention

  A History of Africa’s Diamonds

  Todd Cleveland

  Ohio University Press

  in association with the

  Ohio University Center for International Studies, Athens

  Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701

  www.ohioswallow.com

  © 2014 by Ohio University Center for International Studies

  All rights reserved

  To obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from Ohio University Press publications, please contact our rights and permissions department at (740) 593–1154 or (740) 593–4536 (fax).

  Printed in the United States of America

  Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper ƒ ™

  24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 5 4 3 2 1

  Books in this series are published with support from the

  Ohio University National Resource Center for African Studies.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cleveland, Todd, author.

  Stones of contention : a history of Africa’s diamonds / Todd Cleveland.

  pages cm. — (Africa in world history)

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-8214-2100-0 (pb : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8214-4482-5 (pdf)

  1. Diamond mines and mining—Africa—History. 2. Diamond industry and trade—Africa—History. 3. Diamond industry and trade—Social aspects—Africa. 4. Diamond mines and mining—Economic aspects—Africa. I. Title. II. Series: Africa in world history.

  TN994.A35C54 2014

  338.2782096—dc23

  2014007945

  Africa in World History

  Series editors: David Robinson and Joseph C. Miller

  James C. McCann

  Stirring the Pot: A History of African Cuisine

  Peter Alegi

  African Soccerscapes: How a Continent Changed the World’s Game

  Todd Cleveland

  Stones of Contention: A History of Africa’s Diamonds

  Forthcoming:

  Laura Lee Huttenbach

  The Boy Is Gone: Memoirs of a Mau Mau General

  John M. Mugane

  The Story of Swahili

  Charles Ambler

  Mass Media and Popular Culture in Modern Africa

  To Julianna, Lucas, and Byers

  Acknowledgments

  First and foremost, I would like to thank Gillian Berchowitz, David Robinson, and Joseph Miller. After initially approaching me about this book project, they subsequently provided unwavering support and displayed boundless patience throughout the extended research and writing processes. The concrete forms of their support were myriad, but as this project concludes, I will remember particularly fondly (and miss) Dave’s steady provision of relevant readings and superb ideas, Gill’s sage and serene guidance, and Joe’s timely and innovative suggestions. The uniformly enthusiastic approach of this remarkable editorial team kept this project enjoyable at every turn. I’d also like to express my gratitude to the various staff members with whom I interacted at Ohio University Press; to a person, they were consistently helpful and highly professional. At Augustana College, I am grateful for the assistance of the Tredway Library staff, whose members handled my innumerable requests and orders for both on- and off-site materials promptly, always with a smile and often with a welcomed witticism. I would also like to thank former students Bryce Johnson, Anden Drolet, Jaron Gaier and, especially, Sarah Clement for their contributions during the process of compiling the requisite data for the story I’ve attempted to tell. Elsewhere, Richard Saunders was extremely helpful, and his writings and insights constituted a much-needed compass as I began to delve into Zimbabwe’s rapidly shifting diamond mining landscape. Chadia Chambers-Samadi, John Pfautz, and Odino Grubessi provided important assistance as I secured images to incorporate into the text. The inclusion of passages that outline the colonial-era history of diamond mining in Angola was only possible due to the efforts of a great many people on the ground in both Angola and Portugal during my years of fieldwork in those settings. In particular, I’d like to thank Drs. Rosa Cruz e Silva, Jorge Varanda, and Nuno Porto, as well as Carl Niemann, and also my many African informants in Angola, whose comprehension of the nature and experience of diamond mining—past and present—will forever outdistance my own. I’m also very grateful to the anonymous readers, whose comments and suggestions were instrumental as I proceeded through the manuscript revision. Finally, this highly edifying and enjoyable endeavor would never have reached fruition had it not been for the relentless support of my wife, Julianna, and the inspirational energy provided by our two sons, Lucas and Byers, the latter of whom joined us in the midst of this project.

  Map 1. Africa. Map by Brian Edward Balsley, GISP

  1: An Introduction to Africa’s Diamonds

  In America, it [a diamond] is “bling bling.” But out here [in Africa] it’s “bling bang.”

  —“Danny Archer,” Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in the 2006 film Blood Diamond

  Every time you purchase a piece of diamond jewelry there is a real probability that you will be contributing to the provision of schools, clinics, drinking water, or roads for a poor community in Botswana or South Africa or Namibia.

  —Former Botswana president Festus Mogae, 2008 winner of the Ibrahim Prize, awarded to African heads of state who deliver security, health, education, and economic development to their constituents, and who democratically transfer power to their successors

  After a recent talk I gave on the history of diamond production in Angola, an audience member posed the following questions: “Have you ever purchased a diamond? And, would you ever purchase an African diamond knowing what you know now?” The answer to the first question was easy. “Yes, I have purchased a diamond.” Before addressing the second question, though, I paused before responding. “Actually, I haven’t had the occasion to buy one since learning what I’ve learned.” After the audience both moaned and chuckled in response to my equivocation, they prodded me to answer more decidedly. After further deliberation, I finally replied. “Yes, I suppose I would.”

  In the pages that follow, this book strives to enable you to formulate your own informed answers to that audience member’s second question. Most readers will come to this book with at least some knowledge of the continent’s diamonds, often gleaned from different forms of popular culture. This output includes Graham Greene’s famous novel The Heart of the Matter (1948), and, more recently, both Kanye West’s Grammy-winning single, “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” (2005), and the blockbuster film Blood Diamond (2006).[1] Other readers will have formed their impressions via the mainstream media, which has highlighted the African origins of many of the diamonds that consumers marvel at behind glass jewelry cases the world over. All of these sources, however, link African diamonds to unbridled chaos and, often, to unimaginable violence. What has been ignored is the much wider range of human experience associated with the extraction of diamonds from Africa’s soils.

  For centuries, Africa’s diamonds and other minerals have piqued the interest of outsiders and shaped the lives of countless African men, women, and children. This mineral wealth has subjected the continent’s residents to carnage, exploitation, and widespread suffering. Yet, this wealth has also prompted Africans to pursue creative migration, livelihood, and household strategies; cooperate across potential divides; and acquire technical and managerial skills; and has even facilitated the construction of peaceful, democratic states. In other words, exactly the types of devel
opments that you’ll never encounter in newspaper headlines or on TV news broadcasts.

  This book explores the major developments in the remarkable history of Africa’s diamonds, from the initial international interest in the continent’s mineral wealth during the first millennium a.d., down to the present day. This narrative includes the discovery of diamonds in South Africa in 1867, which ushered in an era of unprecedented greed, manifested in exploitative mining operations. Following the ensuing “scramble for Africa,” during which European powers assumed control of virtually the entire continent, colonial regimes fashioned environments conducive to the commercial objectives of monopolistic diamond enterprises. These companies included, most famously, the industry giant De Beers (explored in detail in chapters 3 and 4). In the aftermath of the birth of independent Africa states, beginning at the end of the 1950s, both rapacious and more responsible regimes joined De Beers and other multinational corporations to oversee mining activity on the continent.

  Beyond examinations of these commercial entities, the book also considers the stories of Africans who have been involved with the continent’s diamonds over the centuries. These individuals include artisanal miners, company mine workers, and the women who support(ed) them; the “headmen” who often furnished these laborers; armed rebels; mining executives; and premiers of mineral-rich states. Although the industrial literature on diamonds tends to render these individuals anonymous, this text explores the highly varied relationships and experiences that Africans have had with the continent’s diamonds. By exploring the multiplicity of the human experiences associated with the history of diamond production in Africa, I hope that you will “see” more than just a glittering accessory the next time you view a diamond in a glass jewelry case. Ultimately, the book aims to help you generate your own answers to the challenging question that the audience member posed to me.

  The Global History of the Diamond

  Diamonds have been around a long, long time and continue to possess an almost mythical quality. Well before their discovery in Africa, the global pursuit of these gemstones had destroyed the fortunes of innumerable individuals while enriching the lives of many others. Legends about the importance of diamonds going well back into the past abound, but most simply reflect a more recent fondness for these stones’ aesthetic brilliance projected onto earlier times. Yet, we can with some certainty trace the desirability of diamonds back at least two millennia. For example, diamonds featured in a treatise in statecraft prepared during the reign of the Indian general Chandragupta, who had driven the Greeks from India in 322 b.c.e.

  In fact, India had long been the epicenter of global diamond production, before yielding to Brazil, and then Africa in more recent times. For centuries, or perhaps even millennia, leading up to the exhaustion of deposits in the mid-1700s, the Indian region of Golconda had been yielding stones to adorn the local nobility and, eventually, European royalty. In fact, two of the most famous diamonds in the world today: the Hope and the Koh-i-Noor, came from the alluvial diggings around Golconda. The latter was so brilliant that it was said that whoever possessed it would rule the world. Given that the British forcibly seized the magnificent stone in the mid-eighteenth century, on their way to establishing the most significant global empire the world had ever seen, this prophecy seemingly contained an element of truth.

  Europeans’ love affair with diamonds had actually started much earlier. Over two millennia ago, the Greeks began facilitating the importation of precious stones from India to a receptive audience in Europe. The famous historian Herodotus (c. 484 b.c.e.–c. 425 b.c.e.) was the first of the early Greek writers to note the displays of precious stones in the palaces and temples of Eastern kings. He mentions, for example, the signet rings of Darius and Polycrates and the emerald column in the Temple of Hercules in Tyre. Via these and other accounts, the mineral riches of both the Near and Far East became known to increasing numbers of Europeans, well beyond Greece’s borders.

  The citizens of ancient Rome also valued diamonds, as well as other precious stones. Few gems initially reached mainland Europe during this period, as Middle Eastern rulers and nobles ensured that any stones that arrived in their territories did not travel any further west. However, following the Roman expansion into Asia Minor in the first century b.c.e., vast quantities of gems began to reach Rome, rendering them increasingly affordable. In fact, over time, gem ownership and the custom of incorporating precious stones into daily dress had become so excessive in Rome that the latter practice was eventually restricted by law.

  For all the attention lavished on gems by the citizens of ancient Greece and Rome, roughly a thousand years would pass before the diamond became the preeminent gemstone. With the conclusion of the Crusades and the concomitant establishment of extensive trading networks linking Europe and the Levant, gems originating in the East once again began to circulate in Europe. This increased commercial access to the East, combined with the growing wealth of the European nobility, led to the proliferation of (increasingly affordable) precious stone ownership on the continent.

  Europeans began using gems for all manner of things, including studding picture frames, ornamenting statuary, decorating arms, as well as for personal adornment. Yet, throughout this “creative explosion” in precious stone usage, rubies, emeralds, opals, and sapphires continued to rank above diamonds, as did pearls. Why? Well, anyone who has observed a diamond in rough form, that is, uncut and unpolished and, thus, aesthetically unspectacular, can answer that question. Moreover, the diamond’s legendary hardness actually limited its utility and, thus, its allure. At this time, consumers of precious stones valued a gem’s color and proportion much more than its hardness. Around the 1460s, however, the diamond’s position at the pinnacle of the gem hierarchy was set in motion by a Flemish lapidary (a person who cuts, polishes, or engraves precious stones) named Louis de Berguem. A rather unlikely historymaker, to be sure.

  Although Indian lapidaries had long been working with diamonds, their techniques failed to reveal the stones’ brilliance. Even when these artisans began to revise their methods in the 1400s, the proportioning remained so poor that much of the stone’s latent brilliancy remained “unreleased.” Only after de Berguem’s re-cutting of the Beau Sancy diamond did the art of modern cutting begin. De Berguem demonstrated how to successfully cut facets on the face of a diamond, which became known as scientific faceting. This technique rendered the diamond a perfect reflector of light and unleashed its interior beauty and, thus, helped establish diamonds as the most coveted of all gems, which, in turn, further fueled demand.

  The novel forms of aesthetic activity and appreciation that were central to the European Renaissance provided a perfect environment for the ascendance of the diamond. Two developments, in particular, thrust the diamond into its paramount position. First was the establishment of a reliable international trade network linking India’s diamondiferous Golconda region directly to Europe. Diamonds were procured and transported by intrepid merchant travelers to eagerly awaiting Europeans, who were now consuming these stones in unprecedented quantities. Perhaps the most famous of these merchants was the Frenchman, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, who, in 1668, sold the legendary Hope Diamond to the French king Louis XIV. Second was the development of the “rose cut.” As European lapidaries gained experience working with ever greater numbers of stones, their elevated levels of craftsmanship enabled them to improve upon de Berguem’s work—a clear case of “practice makes perfect.” In turn, they further highlighted, or “revealed,” the diamond’s brilliance, which heightened demand for a stone whose post-cut beauty was quickly outpacing the aesthetics of rival gemstones.

  The increased demand for Indian diamonds in Europe was further spurred on by the invention of the “brilliant cut,” an improvement on the rose cut. This rapidly expanding market was now supporting an industry that stretched across three continents. Caravans had once transported these stones across Arabia and offloaded them to traders waiting in Aden, Aleppo, and
Alexandria (the initial extent of Africa’s involvement in the trade). However, ships were now increasingly employed to convey these stones to Europe, utilizing the Red Sea but otherwise largely bypassing the Middle East.[2] Upon reaching Europe, Jewish diamond merchants in places as far-flung as Lisbon, Venice and Frankfurt arranged to purchase these precious imports. Jewish involvement in the burgeoning diamond industry in Europe was logical for two main reasons. First, those Jews who served as moneylenders naturally concerned themselves with assessing, repairing, and selling gems that had been offered to them as collateral for loans. And, second, the cutting and polishing of diamonds, initially centered in Lisbon before shifting to Antwerp, was one of the few crafts in which guilds permitted Jews to participate.

  Unfortunately for the European market, the supply of Indian diamonds required to meet the growing demand on the continent was unsustainable. Despite the bountifulness of the Indian mines, they were virtually exhausted by the eighteenth century. This dearth threatened to put an abrupt end to the global supply of these increasingly coveted—and affordable—stones. Yet, as if on cue, gold miners working in 1725 in the Province of Minas Gerais in Portuguese-controlled Brazil stumbled on a new source of diamonds. Virtually overnight, diamond focus shifted halfway around the world and the “rush” to Brazil was on. In response, within a decade of the discovery, the Portuguese crown had declared diamond mining in Brazil a state monopoly—a foreshadowing of future diamond developments in Africa. Meanwhile, overall Brazilian output had already exceeded India’s, thereby cutting the global price of a carat by two-thirds. Yet, by the middle of the following century, carat prices were again rising because of the multitude of wealthy consumers that the Industrial Revolution was spawning; these gems were now within their financial grasp. As with India, however, supply could not keep pace with the exploding demand.