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Supporting Resources
South Africa, Far from Home
stories by winthrop professor susan broomhall
Stones of Love in Deep Time:
Ancient rocks, old emotions,
new business opportunities
The lands that are now Australia and South Africa share a longer
history than many know and the discoveries in the earth beneath
us have revealed intense emotions in our societies.
The oldest recorded life forms on our planet are found in
our two lands. The Pilbara region of WA is host to microbes
known as stromatolites some 3.2 billion years old. Stromatolites
2.5 billion years old are found in the Transvaal Supergroup of
South Africa. Shark Bay’s living marine stromatolites are a mere
2000-3000 years old but their scientific importance was a key
part of the region being declared a World Heritage Area. Until
those at Shark Bay were discovered in the 1950s, scientists only
knew about stromatolites as fossils from ancient times. At Shark
Bay they can study them as life forms doing what stromatolites
were also doing billions of years ago when they dominated life in
the seas.
Joined in deep time, South Africa and Australia also have
geological features in common, not least a bounty of diamonds,
gold and iron ore buried below the surface. Our shared history of
British colonial control has resulted in both our diamond-mining
regions being named Kimberley. But why How are emotions
mixed up in this story
Diamonds were discovered in the North Cape Province of South
Africa in 1866, when Erasmus Jacobs saw a bright pebble on the
banks of the Orange River at his father’s farm. This turned out to
be a 21.25 carat diamond. Three years later, a much larger 83.50
carat diamond, known as the ‘Star of South Africa’, was found on
a nearby farm, Vooruitzigt (‘outlook’ in English) which belonged
to the De Beer brothers, Diederik Arnoldus and Johannes
Nicholas. This discovery sparked a frenzy. Within just a month,
over 800 claims had been made and two to three thousand men
were busy at work cutting in to the hills. The area quickly
became known as ‘New Rush’. The little hill soon became a
mine. Today it is known as the ‘Big Hole’, 463 metres wide and
covering a surface of some 17 hectares. Within less than ten
years, the town was the second largest in South Africa. Everyone
had a dream of riches to be found.
Colonial politics soon were caught up in the mix, with Boer
(Afrikaner farmers) and British political leaders arguing over
who should control the newly wealthy region, and what name it
should be given. The Secretary of State for the Colonies, John
Wodehouse, Lord Kimberley, writing from London, insisted that
the lands had to receive (what he decided were) ‘decent and
intelligible names.’ In particular, he wrote scornfully that he did
not want them ‘in any way connected with such a vulgarism as
New Rush and as for the Dutch name, Vooruitzigt … he could
neither spell nor pronounce it.’ The Colonial Secretary, J.B.
Currey, decided the best thing to do was to name it after
Kimberley himself. The mine became known internationally as
the Kimberley Mine.
The company De Beers was founded in 1888, by Cecil Rhodes,
now famous for his educational philanthropy worldwide. He had
started off renting water to the miners during the early diamond
rush and soon made enough profit to buy land claims and start
his own mining company. The ‘De Beer’ name was an emotional
one. The brothers themselves had no connection to the firm,
but the brothers’ farm had been the site of the biggest diamond
found at that time. The farm was one of those that Rhodes
and his business partner Barney Barnato purchased. It was a
name that represented hope. Unfortunately Barnato and
Rhodes quarrelled over the business: Rhodes won out and
Barnato mysteriously disappeared over the side of a ship
sailing for London.
How is it that diamonds have become the ‘stone of love’, those
most commonly chosen for engagement rings Diamonds had
been a favourite of the nobility for engagement rings since
Archduke Maximilian of Austria had given one as a betrothal gift
to Mary of Burgundy in 1477. However, the new diamond
discoveries in South Africa’s Kimberley increased global
supplies, and opened up to many more people the possibility of
purchasing such a stone. During the twentieth century, diamond
FAR FROM HOME: ADVENTURES, TREKS, EXILES & MIGRATION
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