Description Kimberley Bk 2: Diamonds and War In the second of two books on Kimberley, Naledi tells her grandchildren the story of a mining town becoming city. From the beginning of the 20th century the changes were affected by the lust for wealth that diamonds had brought, and warfare. Read about the experiences of the people during the Siege of Kimberley and throughout the Anglo-Boer War. The story is brought into the contemporary world, with accounts of the famous sons and daughters of Kimberley and the vital roles they played in the formation of South Africa. They came from far and wide Naledi sat at the taxi rank, greeting her friends as they passed by. She was waiting for the arrival of her grandchildren for the school holidays. Bontle and Katlego had caught a taxi near their home in Soweto, just hours after arriving home from their boarding school in Pretoria. The teenagers would be tired after the long journey to Kimberley, she thought, but that would not stop them from firing questions at her the minute they arrived. Kimberley, Naledi’s home since her marriage decades before, had been the nucleus of arrival or departure for so many important people in the history of South Africa. One of Kimberley’s most prominent residents was Ernest Oppenheimer, who came to the town as a diamond buyer and became the town’s mayor. He also won control of Rhodes’ De Beers company, which he combined with his own Anglo-American Corporation to gain the world monopoly in diamond sales. In 1943 he made a donation of R6-million to the state for housing to be built in Soweto, and many Johannesburg townships were laid out for particular ethnic groups. This was part of the state’s strategy to separate black Africans into groupings that would later form the building blocks of the so-called ‘independent homelands’. The Naledi, Mapetla, Tladi, Moletsane and Phiri townships were created to house Sesotho and Setswana-speakers. Dhlamini, Senaoane, Zola, Zondi, Jabulani, Emdeni and White City were created for isiZulu and isiXhosa speakers. Chiawelo was created to house Xitsonga and Tshivenda-speaking residents. Kimberley has played a vital part in the formation of our country. Langalibalele, Nkosi of the amaHlubi in what is now KwaZulu-Natal, had important links with Kimberley. During the diamond rush of the 1870s, many of his young men worked on the mines in Kimberley in order to earn money to buy guns to send home.
