Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T14:48:18.287Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Alluvial gold mining and trade in Nineteenth-Century South Central Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

I. R. Phimister
I. R. Phimister
Affiliation:
University of Rhodesia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

For over nine hundred years the African inhabitants of South Central Africa engaged in the production and trading of gold. The attention of archaeologists and historians, however, has focused mainly on gold reef mining. By comparison, alluvial goldwashing has been neglected, although it was practised by Africans both before and after the period during which they exploited gold reef mines. Probably at its greatest volume between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, the gold trade thereafter declined, but the mining and trading of alluvial gold continued to be relatively important in the nineteenth century in what is now north-eastern Rhodesia. Largely a seasonal activity, goldwashing was normally washing was increasingly subject to interference and attempted suppression as settlers sought t o exploit alluvial areas themselves and force Africans into wage labour. This attempted suppression did not always have the intended results but may be seen generally as part of the wider structural underdevelopment of the African peasantry and precolonial industries in Southern Rhodesia.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , July 1974 , pp. 445 - 456
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Curtin, P. D., ‘The Lure of Bambuk Gold’, J. Afr. Hist. XIV, iv (1973), 623–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 For the purposes of this paper, ‘alluvial’ includes eluvial gold deposits.

3 Owen, Letcher, The Gold Mines of Southern Africa (London, 1936), 218.Google Scholar

4 Schofield, J. F., ‘A Survey of the Recent Prehistory of Southern Rhodesia’, South African Journal of Science, XXVIII (1942), 102.Google Scholar

5 Huffman, T. N., ‘The Rise and Fall of Zimbabwe’, J. Afr. Hist. XIII, iii (1972), 364.Google Scholar

6 In some areas, alluvial gold was worked by shafts sunk into river banks and reef mining may have developed from this technique; see, for example, The Rhodesian Mining Review, 19 02 1913, 185. For further details of alluvial mining methods, see I. R. Phimister, ‘Placer mining in South Central Africa’, unpub. research paper.Google Scholar

7 Phimister, I. R., ‘“Ancient” Mining near Great Zimbabwe’, Journal of the South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, LXXIV (1974), 233–7.Google Scholar

8 Huffman, T. N., ‘Ancient Mining and Zimbabwe’, Journal of the South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, LXXIV (1974), 241;Google ScholarBhila, H. H. K., ‘The Manyika and the Portuguese 1575–1863’, unpublished Ph.D. University of London, 1971, 13–14;Google ScholarWallis, J. P. R. (ed.), The Northern Goldfields Diaries of Thomas Baines (London, 1949, 3 vols.), II, 474, 482.Google Scholar

9 Summers, R., Ancient Mining in Rhodesia (Salisbury, 1969), 218. This payabiity limit was obviously closely related to the profit margin exacted by Portuguese traders, which from the sixteenth century onwards was so high as to make African gold production less and less lucrative.Google Scholar

10 Beach, D. N., ‘Historians and the Shona Empires, Part I’, University of Rhodesia, Henderson Seminar Paper No. 19, 19 08 1972, 12.Google Scholar

11 Bernhard, F. O., Karl Mauch (Cape Town, 1971), 232;Google ScholarPhaup, A. E., ‘The Geology of the Umtali Gold Belt’, Southern Rhodesia Geological Survey Bulletin, no. 32 (1937), 87.Google Scholar

12 Interviews, 30 Mar. 1973, with Magama and Murombedzi, Zwimba Tribal Trust Land.

13 N[ational] A[rchives of] R[hodesia] H.MSS. ED 6/I/I, Reminiscences of ‘Wiri’ Edwards.

14 N. A. R. M 3/8/I/I, NC, Gum, to CNC Salisbury, 10 11 1908.Google Scholar

15 Bernhard, , Karl Mauch, 232;Google ScholarBurke, E. E. (ed.), The Journals of Carl Mauch 1869–1872 (Salisbury, 1969), 234.Google Scholar

16 N. A. R. M 3/8/I/ I, acting ANC, Mrewa, to S.o.N., Salisbury, 12 Nov. 1908; ANC, North Mazoe, to CNC, Salisbury, 4 Nov. 1908.

17 Selous, F. C., Travel and Adventure in South East Africa (London, 1893), 281–2Google Scholar; J. G. Wood, Through Matabeleland (London, 1893), 101: N.A.R. H.MSS. DA 6/3/2.

18 Interviews, 30 Mar. 1973, with Magama, Murombedzi; 6 Apr. 1973, with Chirenge, Zwimba T. T. L. Further research is needed to consider the possible role of kinship and especially bride-wealth in the distribution/redistribution throughout the community of wealth generated by the gold trade; see Gray, R. and Birmingham, D., Pre-Colonial African Trade (London, 1970),3.Google Scholar

19 Some Shona were reported to be taking alluvial gold to the coast in the 1860s; see Thomas, T. M., Eleven Years in Central South Africa (London, 1873), 403.Google Scholar

20 N. A. R. LO 5/2/43, extract from report by Col. Rhodes, II June 1895, upon the African Transcontinental Telegraph Company's line between Salisbury and Tete.

21 N. A. R. RC 3/3/I, Copy of an affidavit made by Chaiya, , 2 03 1899.Google Scholar

22 N. A. R. M 3/8/I/I, acting ANC, Mrewa, to S.o.N., Salisbury, 12. Nov. 1908.

23 Interview, 6 Apr. 1973, with Chirenge, Zwimba T. T. L.

24 Beach, D. N., ‘The Shona and Ndebele Power’, University of Rhodesia, Henderson Seminar Paper No. 26, 27 10 1973, 11–12.Google Scholar

25 ‘Portuguese’ is used here as a linguistic term.

26 Northern Goldfields Diaries, II, 484.Google Scholar

27 For details of this Shona-Portuguese diplomatic activity, see Beach, , ‘The Rising in South Western Mashonaland 1896—7’, unpub. Ph.D. University of London, 1971. See also N.A.R. H.MSS. ED 6/I/I.Google Scholar

28 Selous, , Travel and Adventure, 281–2.Google Scholar

29 Thomas, , Eleven Years, 403.Google Scholar

30 Bernhard, , Karl Mauch, 232; Burke, Journals, 235.Google Scholar

31 Kerr, W. M., The Far Interior (London, 1886), 1, 147, 184–5, 233.Google Scholar

32 N. A. R. H.MSS. ED 6/I/I.

33 Interview, 6 Apr. 1973, with Chirenge.

34 Northern Goldfields Diaries, III, 802;Google ScholarThomas, , Eleven Years, 403.Google Scholar

35 Kerr, , Far Interior, I, 147.Google Scholar

36 N.A.R. H.MSS. DA 6/3/2.

37 N.A.R. M 3/7/8/6, Lipovich, S. to Administrator, Salisbury, 23 09 1905.Google Scholar

38 N.A.R. M 3/8/I/I, Holland, A. to Administrator, undated memo, attached to 26 10 1908, Montagu to Acting Administrator.Google Scholar

39 Wood, , Through Matabeleland, 104.Google Scholar

40 Kerr, , Far Interior, I, 184 II, 8–9.Google Scholar

41 Ranger, T. O., Revolt in Southern Rhodesia 1896–7 (London, 1967), 55–7.Google Scholar

42 The exception may have been the upper Mazoe valley which experienced an influx of white prospectors in late 1890/early 1891. This may well have interfered considerably with African goidwashing operations in subsequent seasons.

43 Ranger, T. O., ‘The Last Days of the Empire of Mwene Mutapa’, History of Central African Peoples Conference, Lusaka, 1963, 4–5.Google Scholar

44 N.A.R. N 9/4/I, NC, Northern Mazoe, report for Dec. 1898; NSI I/I/I, NC, Mrewa [report for year ending 31 Mar. 1899?]

45 N.A.R. N 9/4/5, NC, Northern Mazoe, report for Oct. 1899; Ranger ‘Last Days’, 8.

46 N.A.R. H.MSS. CH 6/I/I, Chamber of Mines, Salisbury, Quarterly Meeting, 27 Feb. 1899; But Africans could still pay hut tax with cash obtained by the sale of gold in Portuguese territory; see Rhodesia Herald, 31 05 1912, letter from ‘Q’ to Editor.Google Scholar

47 N.A.R. M 3/8/I/I, 10 Aug. 1917, unsigned, Salisbury to Keigwin; see especially B. A. Kosmin, ‘Ethnic Groups and the Qualified Franchise in Southern Rhodesia’ (pending publication), for further explanation of this matter.

48 See, for example, N.A.R. N 9/I/19, NC Mtoko, report for the year 1916.

49 N.A.R. M 3/7/8/6, Acting Secretary for Mines to Treasurer, 26 Sept. 1905 S 138/29, NC Mtoko to CNC Salisbury, 18 June 1931.

50 See, for example, Clause 34 of the Mines and Minerals Ordinance of 1895, which offered a £5,000 reward to the discoverer of an alluvial gold digging capable of supporting 200 whites for one year.

51 Curtin, , ‘Bambuk Gold’, 628.Google Scholar

52 Slavery did not exist in any significant way in the area under discussion.

53 Gray and Birmingham, ‘Some Economic and Political Consequences of Trade in Central and Eastern Africa in the Pre-Colomal Period’, in Gray, and Birmingham, , PreColonial African Trade, 12.Google Scholar

54 See Arrighi, G., ‘Labour Supplies in Historical Perspective: A study of the proletarianisation of the African Peasantry in Rhodesia’, Journal of Development Studies, VI (1970), 197–234CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Phimister, I. R., ‘Peasant Production and Underdevelopment in Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1914’, African Affairs, LXXIII (1974), 227–28.Google Scholar

55 For example, by the late nineteenth century it took at least 2½ weeks (‘if a man was lucky’) to wash enough gold to fill two quills; Interview, 6 Apr. 1973, with Chirenge.

56 N.A.R. N 9/4/2, NC North Mazoe, report for Jan. 1899.

57 N.A.R. N 9/4/5, NC North Mazoe, report for Nov. 1899.

58 N.A.R. N 9/4/1, NC North Mazoe, report for Dec. 1898.

59 N.A.R. N 9/1/5, NC North Mazoe, report for year ending 31 Mar. 1899.

60 N.A.R. S 138/29, CNC to the Secretary to the Premier (Native Affairs), 25 July 1931.

61 N.A.R. S 1542/M6, Secretary, Department of Mines and Works, to CNC, 28 June 1935.

62 N.A.R. S 235/515, NCs, Darwin, Mtoko, reports for the year 1936.

63 N.A.R. S 235/517, NC Darwin, report for the year 1939.