The "gold rush," the term comes from the beginning of 1848, when there was a boom in the discovery of gold in California, in any era, people never give up the desire for a better life, every person or every country craves wealth, some with advanced technology, some with abundant labor, and some, It explains what it means to be born with a "golden spoon".

The population of California in 1848 was only 14,000, but by the end of 1849 it had soared to 100,000, and by the end of 1853 to 300,000. Gold prospectors flocked to California from Mexico, the Hawaiian Islands, Central and South America, Australia and New Zealand, southeastern China, and Western and Eastern Europe. But gold is not only in California, so, including South Africa, Australia have their own "gold rush" history.

Both historically and today, South Africa is inextricably linked to the heavy gold, South Africa has nothing, no technology, nor rich labor, but South Africa has the most gold mines in the world, which is enough. Until today, with the rapid development of geological technology and the continuous discovery of gold, South Africa's gold reserves still account for half of the entire African continent. And 40% of all the gold that has ever been mined by mankind comes from South Africa, the "land of gold", which really lives up to its name.

Gold prequel

As we all know, South Africa was formerly a British colony. In this "Horn of Africa", in addition to the indigenous SAN and Khoi people who first lived in South Africa and the Bantu people who later migrated south, there were also the Portuguese who were keen to explore the navigation route, followed by the "sea coachman" the Dutch, and finally the British men. But before the discovery of gold, South Africa had always been a barren and desolate place, with little development but Cape Town. At the beginning of the 17th century, it was the "sea coachman" Dutch people around the seven seas era, seafarers in the Cape Peninsula, known as the "Cape of Good Hope", selected a natural port that could withstand the wind and waves. Long-term ocean voyage, need fresh fruit and vegetables supply, prevent sepsis; The Dutch also used cheap tobacco to induce the addiction of the indigenous people, so as to exchange low-cost tobacco for their cattle and sheep, and then sell it to the ocean sailors in need of meat supplies in the port of Cape Town, to explore the new route may be a near-death life, but in Cape Town to do the supply business is a sure way to make money.

To this day, animal husbandry is still the backbone industry of South Africa. In order to establish farms and ranches to supply products to merchant ships, Dutch immigrants migrated and expanded from the Cape of Good Hope to the interior, occupied large tracts of land of the indigenous people, drove the indigenous black people to work, and became slave owners themselves. These descendants of Dutch, French, and German immigrants gradually formed a unified race, speaking a dialect of Dutch mixed with French, German, Malay, and Xhosa, known as the Boer (" peasant "). In 1795, Napoleon invaded the Dutch mainland, and the British took the opportunity to seize many overseas colonies of the Netherlands, of course, there is also the Cape Town area that the British have coveted for a long time. At the Vienna Peace Conference after the Napoleonic Wars, Britain appropriated Cape Town for its own use by paying a compensation of £6 million to the restored Kingdom of Holland. Subsequently, a large number of British immigrants arrived in Cape Town, and the British government abolished the rights of Boer farmers to occupy and develop new land. Dissatisfied with British rule, a large number of Boer farmers moved out of the Cape Colony to the northwest and northeast regions of Orange and Natal, known as the "Boer Migration". In the ensuing "Battle of the River of Blood", the Boers defeated the indigenous Zulu people, and the Boers established two republics in their newly occupied territory, the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State.

Boer

But they did not know at the time that beneath their feet lay the world's largest and best gold deposits, the Kimberley Gold Mine, and that this unexpected wealth would become a hot lump of hot coals, bringing unexpected opportunities and crises to Africa's southernmost land.

The country was founded by gold

South Africa's history is perhaps best divided by the discovery of diamonds and gold. In 1867, a child accidentally picked up a crystal "stone" while playing on the Orange River. When the "stone" was brought back to Europe for identification, it was confirmed that the "stone" was a diamond. After the news came out, it caused a sensation in the whole world, and Westerners came to South Africa to "explore the treasure". In 1869, a large diamond worth 625,000 francs was found, and in 1884 and 1886, the world's richest gold deposits were discovered in the Transvaal, setting off a "gold rush" in Europe.

Greedy Britain has a keen sense of capital, not to mention a lucrative gold mine. The British quickly decided to annex the Boer lands by force. In 1899, the Boer War broke out, the Transvaal and Orange Army with guerrilla tactics, the battle of Nicholson Canyon, the battle of Colenso and other battles, several battles wiped out more than 6,000 people, the news came, the British Lower Parliament was angry, once the "Empire on which the sun never sets" was humiliated.

The nimble Boer militia inflicted heavy casualties on the British lobstermen

However, although the British suffered, but under the temptation of gold mines, they successively deployed nearly 450,000 troops to the Second Anglo-Boer War, adopted the burning of farms, bunkers tactics, scorched earth policy against the Boers, and took all the local Boer residents, women, children and children, into concentration camps and other harsh measures, and finally destroyed the two small Boer countries. During the entire war, there were nearly 30,000 Boer civilians, including more than 1,600 elderly people, more than 4,000 women, and 22,000 brutal death camps, and the British also paid nearly 200 million pounds in military expenditure. In 1902, the exhausted British and the Boers decided to stop fighting and negotiate peace. But this result, not only made the European countries in an uproar, but also made the loss of heavy, but because of the gold and "indomitable" British Empire lost face, fully confirmed the argument that imperialism is capitalism.

Britain mobilized colonial troops from Canada, Ireland, Scotland, and India to participate in the war, and later this habit was carried over to the future World War I and World War II

After the war, Britain, aware of the enormous cost of a direct seizure by force, decided to push for reconciliation with the Boers. In 1909, the British Parliament enacted the Union of South Africa Act, which established a partnership between the British and the Boers to rule over Africa and provided for the differential treatment of whites and blacks. In 1910, the United Kingdom formed the Union of South Africa from the four autonomous states of Cape, Natal, Transvaal and Orange.

After the war, the Union of South Africa was riddled with holes, and the gold mines, an important source of finance, were forced to shut down, but this opposition also promoted the formation of the whole concept of South Africa. In the war, not only the Boers lost their lives and wealth, but also the British colonists in Cape Town who were called to join the army, and the European gold seekers who simply desired wealth. In addition to the black people with different skin colors, the Boer War greatly promoted the formation of the psychological state of national identity of these ethnic groups, and finally formed a nation after a long-term evolution and identity process. This is the beginning of today's South African nation.

The first all-white South African Cabinet

In addition to the construction of national consciousness, South Africa's economy after the Anglo-Britian War also benefited a lot. By 1914, South Africa's annual gold production reached 341 tons, accounting for 28% of the world's total at the time. The discovery of gold also changed the ranking of South Africa's four economic zones (Western Cape, southern Durban, Transvaal and Orange), with the poorest Transvaal quickly overtaking the Cape to become the largest economic zone by revenue.

Of course, the benefits are not limited to the Transvaal. South Africa's above-ground gold mines are rapidly being depleted, and to develop the gold in deeper layers, it is necessary to bring in a well-capitalized international consortium to invest huge sums of money and introduce the most advanced equipment. The greedy British capital played a leading role in this process, including the Rothschilds and the big British banks were deeply involved in the process.

Trivia: Where is the biggest mine in the world? Kimberley Mines, South Africa. In less than two hundred years, human beings removed nearly 22 million tons of earth, only to remove about 3 tons of diamonds. The first country to implement the gold coin standard was the United Kingdom, and the British pound had the same important status as gold, not only because of the great economic power of the United Kingdom at that time. But also because of the Transvaal's continuous gold exports. This is why London has always been one of the unshakable financial centers in the world.

If there is "gold", is there necessarily no "trouble"?

Although 40% of all the gold ever mined comes from South Africa, the country that actually owns gold has never been South Africa. At the end of 1913, Britain, France, the United States, Germany and Russia held two-thirds of the world's gold stock, and most of the gold was owned by a few powerful countries. Even today, the top six gold reserves are named: the United States, Germany, Italy, France, Russia, and China, of which the United States reserves 8,113.1 metric tons, about equal to the gold of the top two to four countries combined. South Africa, the "gold country" that occupies the largest and best gold mine in the world, is not even among the top ten gold reserves in the world today.

It can be said that a hundred years later, the repetition of history is still repeated. I do not know, this is not another form of "all over the people, not the silkworm people"?

The longevity queen said that the "Star of Africa" diamond above her head was produced in South Africa

From another perspective, South Africa has also continued the "traditional art" of the ancestors, that is, the exploitation and use of black people as much as possible. In the four decades from 1932 to 1972, South Africa's GDP doubled on average every 7.4 years. Especially in the 1960s, South Africa's economic growth rate for a time was comparable to that of Japan, the fastest growing country in the world at that time, and even was included in the developed countries, which looked really beautiful.

In 1991, white South Africans earned more than eight times as much as black South Africans, many of whom were educated but unable to find work because of the government's policies

But such a growth rate has a "dark light". Because all this is based on the illusion that black people are not human, if the national income level is calculated according to the population of Europe, South Africa can indeed be classified as a developed country. However, under the apartheid system of labor market, 99% of engineers, 78% of natural scientists, 91% of technicians, and 72% of technicians in South Africa were white, and almost all workers were black.

"Whites Only" sign in English and Afrikaans

Taking Kimberley gold mine as an example, the depth of the mine can reach 3000 meters, the temperature at the bottom of the gold mine is as high as 64 degrees Celsius, relying on air conditioning refrigeration can barely reduce the temperature to about 30 degrees Celsius, continue to mine, the conditions are very difficult. Most of the gold that black workers have worked so hard to mine is divided by big capital and the South African government, and the bottom black people can only drink the rest of the soup.

Bottom black miners map source.pexels

These measures have made South Africa one of the most unequal countries in the world. In the early 1970s, the richest 20% of South Africans owned 75% of the country's wealth (compared with less than 40% in the US); South Africa's Gini coefficient is a staggering 0.61 - a figure above 0.40 that indicates significant inequality. It is also because of this that the black equality movement of Mandela and others broke out. The apartheid system, which provided blacks with a source of cheap Labour, failed to provide talent as industrialisation progressed. After 1981, the South African economy fell into a prolonged recession: -0.8 per cent in 1982, -1.8 per cent in 1983 and -1.2 per cent in 1985; South Africa's manufacturing sector, in particular, grew at an average annual rate of -1.2% between 1980 and 1985, which is unprecedented in South Africa's history...

The country of gold, it seems, has never really held its wealth in its hands, which is thought-provoking.

Big tail bear _ Geovalley member European modern history buff

Reference: General History of South Africa. UNESCO; History of South Africa. Zheng Jiaxin; History of the Union of South Africa. Simon Sharma; Colonial imagination and local change. Comped

* This article is provided by the author and does not represent the position of GeoValley