How Diamonds Transformed Southern Africa: Kimberley's Blood, Sweat & Segregation (opens in new tab)

By 1890, South Africa was by far the world’s largest producer of diamonds, easily outstripping such traditional sources as Brazil. In fact, Rhodes and De Beers had gained control of around 90% of the world’s diamonds. The De Beers monopoly in Kimberley allowed the company to do two things: control the output of the diamonds to maintain prices and drive down the costs of labour. In order to reduce theft, workers were obliged to live in compounds with wire meshes, but, in the first step towards...