Empire Cricket Booklet

ORIGINS OF SEGREGATION AT THE CAPE

White claims holders briefly considered fitting black workers with muzzles, but these were abandoned as impractical. The compound system was developed instead, making IDB much more difficult for black workers to profit from while leaving the field open to white diggers, who were never subject to compounds. Workers for larger companies such as De Beers were kept prisoner in enclosures fenced and roofed with fine mesh, could only enter the mine through tunnels from within the compound, were subjected to humiliating daily body searching and had to spend time in detention cells after their contracts were concluded to ensure no stones had been swallowed. 32 But the compound system did not simply stop IDB; compounds maintained profits for investors by ensuring that the labour supply remained steady as imprisoned labour had little option but to fulfil contracts. And compound labour undercut costs to such an extent, collecting a substantial portion of wages back through the company store, that small diggers were unable to compete. But compounds inevitably served as the breeding grounds for diseases brought in by migrant workers as well as meningitis and scurvy encouraged by the appalling overcrowding. Workers at De Beers had a mortality rate of over one in ten, a higher death rate, apparently, than in the slums of Calcutta. 33 Rhodes's crony, Leander Starr Jameson, who was to lead the infamous Jameson Raid in 1896, was Kimberley's medical officer in the 1880s. During his tenure, he covered up a smallpox outbreak for fear of its effect on share prices, describing it in the press as 'non-contagious', and more than 700 hundred African workers out of a total population of 12 000 died in the subsequent epidemic. 34 Africans fortunate enough to escape imprisonment in the compound death traps were highly conscious of the need to develop support networks to provide some social cohesion amidst the drunkenness, brutality and social disintegration which character ised Kimberley. Inevitably Kimberley exacerbated the tensions between 'mission-educated' blacks and whites. Whites, particularly claims holders, had no desire to encourage competition for land, diamonds or labour, and Africans in European clothing were stigmatised as middle men in the IDB trade. But the compound system not only directly threatened the

access of small diggers to the industry itself; white traders and sellers of cheap Cape brandy were also vehemently against the compound system which undercut their customer base. Mission-educated Africans were fully aware of the threat posed by alcohol to the social fabric and in 1876 it was reported that a band of about 40 Dutch-speaking 'natives' had formed themselves into a lodge of the 'True Templars' and were actively engaged in rescuing the victims of drink. 35 The members of the lodge held a procession through the town and indulged in various games and amusements, including cricket. Temperance was a key element of the mission canon and temperance groups along with burial societies, self-improvement, and debating societies, and sports clubs and associations formed the basis of social interaction and support among the group of educated Africans who had been drawn to Kimberley in the 1870s and 1880s as clerks, interpreters, missionaries, traders, transport drivers and on occasion, claims holders. They were a beacon of 'civilisation' in a town which the mine owners had created. As John X. Merriman, commissioner of mines, noted, 'never was there a labouring population so debased or treated with such disregard of their moral and physical welfare'. 36 The politics of temperance were not only an issue for local traders and suppliers, but the temperance phenomenon was a colony-wide movement rooted in mission schools. Temperance societies, arising out of the self-improvement priorities of the African aspirant middle classes, were inevitably drawn into opposition to the Afrikaner producers of wines and spirits who formed the core of the Afrikaner Bond under 'Onze Jan' Hofmeyr. This was one more element in the struggle between 'mission-educated Africans' and white farmers over land, labour and culture. And of course, the persistent accusations of Africans as middle men for the IDB trade, whether or not true, encouraged the African elite to take the high moral ground as often as possible. As an issue, temperance was at the heart of the Victorian notion of individual improvement as well as of social control as applied to the labouring classes most at risk from alcohol vendors. It demonstrated a commitment to Victorian values as well as a concern for broader African interests. The Natives Educational Association, led