Cecil John Rhodes was born on 5 July 1853 in the small hamlet of Bishops Stortford, England. monopolized the diamond markets of the world. A British Businessman in South Africa, Member of Parliament in the Cape Colony, Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, imperialist, acquired a British Royal Charter, formed the British South African Company (BSAC) that colonized Zimbabwe. With the 35-year-old Rhodes running Kimberley as well, the diamond industry stabilized, while his company, De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd. An intense struggle ensued between the two men, but in the end, in 1888, Barnato was persuaded to sell out to Rhodes. Rhodes eventually gained control of the De Beers Mine, while Barnato became chief executive of the Kimberley Central Mining Company. Both traveled from England for different reasons and eventually cherished the same ideal - the control of all the diamond mines around Kimberley. Some kind of order had to be introduced.Д®nter Cecil John Rhodes, a country parsonвЂ™s son, and the flamboyant stage actor Barney Barnato.

But the complex workings made the Big Hole increasingly chaotic as men dug deeper. The five mines in the area around Kimberley were originally divided into claims 30ft x 30ft which were worked by individual diggers.ДЄccording to legend those who were successful went on mammoth sprees, lighting cigars with bank-notes, while the women bathed in champagne. The first diamond was found by a child in 1866 or 1867. The man stretched a pickax high above his head and hacked into the clumpy black dirt around his feet. Its discovery prompted Sir Richard Southey, the Colonial Secretary at the Cape, to declare: вЂњThis is the rock on which the future success of South Africa will be built.вЂќ The diamond rush had begun. REPORTER AT LARGE about the history of diamond mining in and around Kimberley, South Africa. Driven by desperation and rumors, thousands of jobless South Africans rushed to a sleepy village in search of buried treasure. Van Niekerk traded all his possessions for a magnificent 83,50 carat diamond, the stone which was to become famous as the Star of South Africa. Had the teenager known that his discovery was to lead to the great South African diamond rush, he might well have called out вЂњEureka!вЂќ вЂ“ the name eventually given to this yellow diamond of 21,25 carats.Д«ut it was the deal made by Schalk van Niekerk, a Hopetown farmer, and a Griqua shepherd called Zwartbooi which really drew the worldвЂ™s treasure hunters to the Northern Cape. The event, a pretty white pebble found by young Erasmus Jacobs on the banks of the Orange River.

The place, the farm De Kalk near Hopetown.

Diamond rush in south africa