Diamonds in the Rough: The ICU’s Activism on the Lichtenburg Diamond Diggings, 1927–1931

Abstract

This article tracks the involvement of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU) in the strike on the Lichtenburg diamond diggings of June 1928, during which 35,000 black workers downed tools. At the time, this was the second largest strike by black workers in South African history. This article adds to the literature on the strike in two ways. First, it argues that from mid 1927 (a year before the strike), the ICU began to pay attention to the plight of black workers and location residents on the Lichtenburg diggings and in the adjacent locations. When workers’ weekly wages were cut from 20 shillings to 12 shillings in June 1928, the ICU organised workers by picketing and mobilising workers to strike; by holding meetings to discuss their demands; and by negotiating with white diggers and state officials. A second contribution of the article is the argument it makes that recently unemployed workers and persecuted location residents joined the striking workers, broadening the composition of the body of strikers and the scope of the strike. The ICU managed to mobilise these workers and this became a hallmark of their activism in subsequent years. At the end of the strike, an agreement was reached between workers, the state, diggers and the ICU to pay 15 shillings – a less dramatic wage drop than proposed. The ICU’s role in the strike was so pronounced that in the months that followed it, the membership of the ICU exploded in towns across the Western Transvaal. This article argues that the strike was an outstanding achievement for the ICU in spite of its organisational decline towards the end of the 1920s.

Keywords:

• Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union
• ICU
• Lichtenburg
• strike
• labour
• Keable ‘Mote
• Clements Kadalie

Acknowledgements

I thank Arianna Lissoni and Henry Dee for their time and energy in giving critical and engaged feedback. Also, I thank the History Workshop for funding for the Master’s programme which produced my thesis and subsequently this article. The Wits Historical Papers Research Archive and the South African National Archives were extremely helpful in in providing documents. Finally, I would like to thank my friends, my darling and my family for their support during the research process.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished online with one minor update. This update does not affect the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 T.P. Clynick, ‘The Lichtenburg Alluvial Diamond Diggers 1926–1929’ (unpublished paper, University of the Witwatersrand, 21 May 1984), p. 13, available online at https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/39667453.pdf, retrieved 11 December 2023.

2 H.J. Simons and R.E. Simons, Class and Colour in South Africa, 1850–1950 (London, IDAF, 1983 [1st edition, 1969]), p. 362.

3 C. van Onselen, The Seed is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, a South African Sharecropper, 1894–1985 (New York, Hill and Wang, 1996), p. 146.

4 H. Bradford, A Taste of Freedom: The ICU in Rural South Africa, 1924–1930 (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1987), p. 166.

5 C. Kadalie, My Life and the ICU: The Autobiography of a Black Trade Unionist, S. Trapido (ed.) (London, Frank Cass, 1970); S.J. Jingoes, A Chief is a Chief by the People: The Autobiography of Stimela Jason Jingoes J. and C. Perry (eds) (London, Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 117; University of the Witwatersrand (hereafter Wits), Historical Papers Research Archive (hereafter Wits HPRA), Saffery Papers, AD 1178, H.D. Tyamzashe, ‘A Summarised History of the ICU by Henri Danielle Tyamzashe who was Complaints & Research Secretary ICU and Editor of ICU Newspapers’ (unpublished manuscript).

6 The interviews were among those conducted by the Sharecropping and Labour Tenancy Project and those conducted by Sylvia Neame, both kept at the Wits Historical Papers Research Archive. The archival documents are from the Justice Files in the National Archives and from a digitised collection of newspapers in the author’s possession. These include the Workers’ Herald, the official organ of the ICU, Johannesburg, 1926–1928.

7 Van Onselen, The Seed is Mine, p. 146.

8 C. van Onselen, ‘The Social and Economic Underpinning of Paternalism and Violence on the Maize Farms of the South‐Western Transvaal, 1900–1950’, Journal of Historical Sociology 5, 2 (1992), p. 132.

9 T.P. Clynick, ‘“Digging a Way into the Working Class”: Unemployment and Consciousness Amongst the Afrikaner Poor on the Lichtenburg Alluvial Diamond Diggings, 1926–1929’, in R. Morrell (ed.), White but Poor: Essays on the History of Poor Whites in Southern Africa 1880–1940 (Pretoria, University of South Africa, 1992), p. 77.

10 Wits HPRA, Sylvia Neame Papers, A2729, interview with Solomon Buirski, London, 9 November 1968 (hereafter Buirski interview), p. 76.

11 Van Onselen, ‘The Social and Economic Underpinning’, p. 131. Further similarities between farms and diggings were the hours of work and the ways in which work was circumscribed by the weather.

12 Clynick, ‘The Lichtenburg Alluvial Diamond Diggers’, p. 2.

13 Wits HPRA, Institute for Advanced Social Research (hereafter IASR), A2738, Tape no. 300, Transcript no. 51, interview with K. Maine conducted by M.M. Molepo in Ledig, Rustenburg, 28 July 1987; Buirski interview, p. 76; see R. Turrell, ‘The 1875 Black Flag Revolt on the Kimberly Diamond Fields’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 7, 2 (1981), pp. 201–03.

14 Clynick, ‘The Lichtenburg Alluvial Diamond Diggers’, p. 1.

15 Ibid., p. 9.

16 T.P. Clynick, ‘Political Consciousness and Mobilisation Amongst Afrikaner Diggers on the Lichtenburg Diamond Fields, 1926–1929’ (MA thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 1988), p. 46.

17 T.P. Clynick, ‘Afrikaner Political Mobilisation in the Western Transvaal: Popular Consciousness and the State, 1920–1930’ (PhD thesis, Queen’s University, 1996).

18 Buirski interview, p. 76; P.L. Wickins, ‘The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa’ (PhD thesis, University of Cape Town, 1973), p. 265.

19 A. Daimon, ‘Settling in Motion: Nyasa Clandestine Migration Through Southern Rhodesia into the Union of South Africa, 1920s–50s’, WISER Working Paper 41 (2018), p. 22.

20 Van Onselen, The Seed is Mine, p. 170.

21 Ibid.

22 D. Money, ‘Underground Struggles: The Early Life of Jack Hodgson’, in K. van Walraven (ed.), The Individual in African History: The Importance of Biography in African Historical Studies (Leiden, Brill, 2020), p. 177.

23 Clynick, ‘“Digging a Way into the Working Class”‘, p. 79.

24 Clynick, ‘The Lichtenburg Alluvial Diamond Diggers’, p. 7.

25 Ibid., p. 4. This characterisation of the diggings was given by J.F.W. Grosskopf to the Carnegie Commission.

26 Buirski interview, p. 76.

27 Wits HPRA, IASR, A2738, Tape no. 570, Transcript no. 158; interview with I. Moeng conducted by T. Matsetela, Oersonskraal, 19 May 1987 (hererafter Moeng interview 1).

28 Clynick, ‘The Lichtenburg Alluvial Diamond Diggers’, p. 2.

29 Buirski interview, p. 76.

30 S. Plaatje, ‘Native Life at the Alluvial Diggings’, English in Africa, 3, 2 (1976) [originally published 1927], p. 65.

31 Ibid.

32 Clynick, ‘The Lichtenburg Alluvial Diamond Diggers’, p. 8.

33 ‘Lichtenburg Distress’, Rand Daily Mail, Johannesburg, 1 March 1928.

34 ‘Tit for Tat and Another Tit’, Workers’ Herald, Johannesburg, 18 March 1927.

35 ‘Lichtenburg Distress’.

36 ‘Diggings with No Police’, Rand Daily Mail, 25 May 1928. Crime was widespread; in this article it was reported that two murders and five homicides occurred over a single weekend at the diggings.

37 University of Cape Town (UCT) Archives, Lionel Forman Papers (LFP), B 3.137, Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, letter from Kieser and McLaren, Attorneys, to C. Doyle Modiakgotla re treatment of ICU members at Mafeking, Mafeking, 29 October 1927. Modiakgotla had sought legal advice from attorneys Kieser and McLaren who advised him to send a report to the ICU’s Head Office and the Minister of Justice.

38 UCT Archives, Lionel Forman papers (LFP), B 3.145, Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, holograph of letter from C. Doyle Modiakgotla to Champion re visit to the Grassfontein [sic] diggings, Kimberley, 1 November 1927.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 D.L. Spar, ‘Markets: Continuity and Change in the International Diamond Market’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20, 3 (2006), p. 196.

42 Ibid., pp. 197–9. Rhodes calculated that the number of diamonds that should be allowed into the market should be equal to the number of weddings occurring globally.

43 P. Hastings, Cases in Court (Auckland, Pickle Partners Publishing, 2018), pp. 134–5.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid., pp. 135–7.

46 See Clynick, ‘The Lichtenburg Alluvial Diamond Diggers’, p. 10 and H. Bradford, ‘The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa in the South African Countryside, 1924–1930’ (PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 1985), p. 242.

47 See Clynick, ‘The Lichtenburg Alluvial Diamond Diggers’, p. 11; Clynick, ‘Political Consciousness and Mobilisation’, pp. 99–102 and Clynick ‘“Digging a Way into the Working Class”‘, pp. 89–90.

48 Clynick, ‘Political Consciousness and Mobilisation’, pp. 59–61.

49 Buirski interview, pp. 69–71.

50 UCT Archives, LFP, B 3.145, holograph of letter from C. Doyle Modiakgotla to Champion.

51 National Archives of South Africa (NASA), Secretary of Justice (JUS), 443, 3/524/28, letter from I.V. Raubenheimer to the Minister of Justice, 9 May 1928.

52 Ibid.

53 NASA, JUS, 443, 3/524/28, letter from the Office of the Deputy Inspector at Elandsputte to the District Commandant of the SAP at Potchefstroom, 29 May 1928. Pass laws required that black, Indian and coloured people carry documents which allowed them access to areas restricted by the state, often urban areas. They ran throughout colonial and Apartheid periods. The woman’s anti-pass march of 1956 and Sharpeville massacre are major political actions of anti-pass action and ensuing violence by the state.

54 Ibid.

55 NASA, Secretary of Home Affairs (BNS), 1/1/377, 194/74, ‘Natives from Rhodesia, Bechuanaland, Portuguese East Africa, British East Africa, Nyasaland Etc Etc: Influx of. (1924–1929)’, letter from Howe, inspector for the SAP at Elandsputte, to Deputy Commissioner of Police, 2 September 1927.

56 NASA, Government Native Labour Bureau (GNLB), 356, 45/24, 208/27/48 and 23/3/28, ‘Lichtenburg Labour District, Faction Fights: Blantyre Natives and Basutos’ (1927); ‘Fights at the Western Native Township: Houseboys Formed Part of the Attacking Force’, Times of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 29 December 1927; NASA, BNS, 1/1/377, 194/74, ‘Natives from Rhodesia, Bechuanaland, Portuguese East Africa, British East Africa, Nyasaland Etc Etc: Influx of (1924–1929)’, letter from Secretary of Native Affairs, J.E. Herbst to Schmidt, the Secretary for the Interior, 12 June 1929; ‘Africans Versus Africans’, Abantu Batho, 9 February 1928; ‘Trouble at Western Native Township’, Umteteli Wa Bantu, 31 December 1927. It is claimed that ‘Central African Natives’ were ‘interfering with Native women’.

57 R.W. Msimang, ‘Congress Supports Deportation’, Umteteli wa Bantu, 11 February 1928; R.W. Msimang, ‘Congress Folly Exposed’, Workers’ Herald, Johannesburg, 15 February 1928

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid.

60 H. Dee, ‘Clements Kadalie, Trade Unionism, Migration and Race in Southern Africa, 1918–1930’ (PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2019), pp. 127, 238.

61 Clynick, ‘“Digging a Way into the Working Class”’, p. 87.

62 Ibid., p. 89.

63 Money, ‘Underground Struggles’, p. 177. Buirski had worked together with the ICU and Kadalie at the Cape Town docks in the ICU’s formative years. In 1926 he addressed numerous ICU meetings held with mineworkers in Ferreiradorp. Later in 1926, he moved to Lichtenburg where he began to dig for diamonds and remembers addressing an ICU meeting on unity between black and white workers. See Buirski interview, p. 76.

64 Clynick, ‘“Digging a Way into the Working Class”‘, pp. 92–5.

65 Clynick, ‘The Lichtenburg Alluvial Diamond Diggers’, p. 12.

66 Ibid., p. 12.

67 Ibid., p. 16.

68 NASA, JUS, 920, 1/18/26, vol. 16–vol. 18, report given to the Officer in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department at Elandsputte, 25 April 1928.

69 Clynick, ‘Political Consciousness and Mobilisation’, p. 133.

70 Wits HPRA, Sylvia Neame Papers, A2729, interview with Keable ‘Mote, Pretoria, July 1962 (hereafter ‘Mote interview).

71 NASA, JUS, 920, 1/18/26, vol. 16–vol. 18, report given to the Officer in charge, 25 April 1928.

72 NASA, JUS, 920, 1/18/26, vol. 16–vol. 18, report given by the Officer in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department at Elandsputte to the Criminal Investigation Department at Elandsputte, 2 May 1928.

73 NASA, JUS, 920, 1/18/26, vol. 16–vol. 18, report from the Criminal Investigation Department in Potchefstroom to the District Commandant of the South African Police at Potchefstroom, 25 June 1928.

74 Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, p. 364; ‘Diggers and Natives’, Rand Daily Mail, 23 June 1928. The RDM provides a report of police putting the number of striking workers at 80,000 and Keable ‘Mote put the number of strikers at 60,000. ‘Mote interview.

75 Clynick, ‘The Lichtenburg Alluvial Diamond Diggers’, p. 12.

76 NASA, Secretary of Native Affairs (NTS), 2092, 215/280, Lichtenburg Alluvial Diggings, Native Strike, ‘Minutes of Meeting Held at the South African Police Station on Wednesday the 20th June 1928, Convened for the Purpose of Coming to Some Finality on the Question of the Native Strike’, 20 June 1928, p. 2. It was Major Cooke who had brought up this point.

77 Wits HPRA, IASR, A2738, Tape no. 535, Transcript no. 140, interview with P. Baraganyi conducted by M.M. Molepo, Boskuil, 5 August 1985 (hereafter Baraganyi interview 1).

78 Wits HPRA, IASR, A2738, Tape no. 560, Transcript no. 157, interview with P. Baraganyi conducted by M.T. Nkadimeng, Boskuil, 16 January 1987 (hereafter Baraganyi interview 2).

79 Ibid.

80 Bradford, A Taste of Freedom, p. 166. Note that this is her translation of Kas Maine’s words which in the original are in Afrikaans. Wits HPRA, IASR, A2738, Tape no. 264, Transcript no. 45, interview with K. Maine conducted by C. van Onselen, Ledig, Rustenburg, 24 February 1982.

81 NASA, NTS, 2092, 215/280, Lichtenburg Alluvial Diggings, Native Strike, ‘Minutes of Meeting of Diggers Held at Portion ‘U’, Grasfontein, on Monday Afternoon, 18th June 1928, at Lemmers Café in Connection with the Native Strike’, 18 June 1928.

82 Ibid.

83 NASA, NTS, 2092, 215/280, Lichtenburg Alluvial Diggings, Native Strike, p. 3. Comment made by Swanepoel.

84 Ibid., p. 4. Comment by Jooste.

85 Baraganyi interview 1. Sol Plaatje glosses Motati in Plaatje, ‘Native Life at the Alluvial Diggings’, p. 64.

86 Baraganyi interview 1; Baraganyi interview 2. Baraganyi gives two amounts, one being £5 and another £1 and 5 shillings. The £5 could be referring to the monthly amount; that is, £1 and 5 shillings weekly. The £1 and 5 shillings as a weekly amount would have been a 17-shilling increase from the post-reduction wage of 12 shillings, and only 5s more than the pre-reduction wage. This is an audacious demand considering their position relative to the diggers, De Beers and the state.

87 ‘Police for Diggings: Claim Work at a Standstill’, Rand Daily Mail, 19 June 1928; ‘Big Native Strike: Over 5,000 Stop Work at Diggings’, The Star, Johannesburg, 18 June 1928; Bradford, ‘The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union’, p. 243.

88 NTS, 2092, 215/280, Lichtenburg Alluvial Diggings, Native Strike, p. 9. Comment by Swanepoel.

89 Ibid., p. 6. Comment by De Vos. In the South African Worker, it was noted that ‘two I.C.U. officials, who had been present when the cessation of work took place, advised workers to return to work shortly afterwards’; ‘30,000 Natives on Strike at Lichtenburg’, The South African Worker, Cape Town [?], 22 June 1928.

90 Interview with Solomon Buirski, pp. 69–71.

91 Wits HPRA, IASR, A2738, Tape no. 563, Transcript no. 258, interview with I. Moeng conducted by T. Matsatela, Oersonskraal, 31 March 1987. Also see S.J. Jingoes, A Chief is a Chief by the People, p. 117. Jingoes suggests that there was a strike in Lichtenburg and that he held a meeting during it. He cites a strike for wages of 1s 6d a day, which was increased to 2s a day. This could show the different wages paid across the diggings.

92 A2738, Moeng interview 1; Wits HPRA A2738, IASR Tape no. 561 and 562, Transcript no. 245, interview with I. Moeng conducted by T. Matsetela, Oersonskraal, 12 March 1987 (hereafter Moeng interview 2).

93 Ibid.

94 Moeng interview 1.

95 Moeng interview 2.

96 Moeng interview 1.

97 Ibid.

98 ‘Lichtenberg A Town of Refugees: 30,000 Natives on Strike at the Diggings’, Rand Daily Mail, 20 June 1928.

99 Ibid.

100 NTS, 2092, 215/280. Lichtenburg Alluvial Diggings, Native Strike, p. 9. Comment by Major Cooke.

101 Ibid.

102 Bradford, A Taste of Freedom, p. 166.

103 Quoted in Wickins, ‘The Industrial’, p. 442, footnote 1; ‘The Native Strike’, The Star, 21 June 1928.

104 Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, p. 364.

105 Ibid.

106 Wits HPRA, Ballinger Family Collection, A410, C2.3.7, letter from Ethelreda Lewis to Lord Oliver, 20 June 1928.

107 Major Irvine noted that Sergeant Mickdal confirmed the movements of Kadalie and ‘Mote; see NASA NTS, 2092, 215/280, Lichtenburg Alluvial Diggings, Native Strike, p. 6. See also NASA, JUS, 920, 1/18/26, vol. 16–vol. 18, report received by the Divisional Officer at Kimberley from the SAP at Mafeking, 21 June 1928.

108 Comment by Ruitgelaagte; see NTS, 2092, 215/280, Lichtenburg Alluvial Diggings, Native Strike, p. 7.

109 Ibid., p. 6. Comment by Malan.

110 Interview with Solomon Buirski, p. 76.

111 NASA, NTS, 2092, 215/280, Lichtenburg Alluvial Diggings, Native Strike, letter from the Magistrate at Lichtenburg to the Secretary of Mines and Industries, Pretoria, 21 June 1928.

112 It is unclear on which day of the strike the soldiers arrived, and whether it was the army or the police. According to Moeng’s chronology, when the ‘soldiers’ came, ‘people were already looting the white shops because they were starving’, which suggests it could have been as early as 19 June and continuing until 21 June. Moeng interview 1.

113 ‘Mote interview.

114 Moeng interview 1.

115 NASA, NTS, 2092, 215/280, Lichtenburg Alluvial Diggings, Native Strike, letter from the Director of Native Labour to the Secretary of Native Affairs, 6 July 1929.

116 See comments by diggers: NTS, 2092, 215/280, Lichtenburg Alluvial Diggings, Native Strike.

117 Bradford, A Taste of Freedom, p. 167.

118 Ibid.

119 Bradford, ‘The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union’, p. 244.

120 Wits HPRA, South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR), AD1715, Report of the National European–Bantu Conference, Cape Town, 6–9 February 1929.

121 B. Hirson, ‘The Bloemfontein Riots, 1925: A Study in Community Culture and Class Consciousness’, Collected Seminar Papers. Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 33 (1984), pp. 82–96.

122 ‘30,000 Natives on Strike at Lichtenburg’, The South African Worker, 22 June 1928.

123 Bradford, ‘The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union’, p. 245.

124 Van Onselen, The Seed is Mine, p. 146.

125 Bradford, A Taste of Freedom, p. 167.

126 Baraganyi interview 2.

127 Ibid.

128 Moeng interview 1.

129 NASA, NTS, 2092, 215/280, Lichtenburg Alluvial Diggings, Native Strike, Note dated 26 June 1929.

130 Van Onselen, The Seed is Mine, p. 146.

131 For reports on striking workers not linked to the ICU, see ‘20,000 Natives on Strike’, The Star, 19 June 1928.

132 Bradford, ‘The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union’, p. 245.

133 ‘Native Strikers at Diggings’, South African Worker, 26 June 1928.

134 Bradford, A Taste of Freedom, p. 166–7.

135 NASA, JUS, 920, 1/18/26, vols. 16–18, report from the Criminal Investigation Department in Potchefstroom, 25 June 1928.

136 JUS 921 1/18/26 vols. 19–21, report compiled by the Maquassi police Sergeant, 29 July 1928.

137 Report given to the Officer in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department at Elandsputte, 25 April 1928.

138 Dee, ‘Clements Kadalie’. For the 1919 strike, see pp. 114–17; for the Rand Revolt, see p. 131; for direct action versus constitutional methods, see pp. 189–90.

139 Bradford, A Taste of Freedom, p. 167. See, also, NASA, NTS, 2092, 219/280, Natives on diamond diggings, failure of employers to meet obligations, letter from the Director of Native Labour to the Secretary of Native Affairs, 4 & 7 July 1928.

140 NASA, NTS, 2092, 219/280, Natives on diamond diggings, failure of employers to meet obligations, letter from the Director of Native Labour to the Secretary for Native Affairs, September 1928.

141 Interview with Solomon Buirski, p. 76.

142 ‘The Lichtenburg Outburst’, Umteteli Wa Bantu, 3 November 1928.

143 Ibid.

144 As seen in Table 1, alluvial diamond production across South Africa was decreasing rapidly after two successful years of mining in 1927 and 1928. By 1929 production was 750,000 carats less than in 1928 and this decreased by a further 350,000 carats in 1930. This forced diggers and workers into increasingly precarious economic positions.

145 This included Winifred Holtby and Ethelreda Lewis, who were writers; Holtby was a feminist writer and Lewis wrote about the plight of black workers in South Africa. Edgar Brookes, another who became involved with the ICU, worked with the Institute of Race Relations in the 1920s.

146 For more information on the Independent ICU, see Dee, ‘Clements Kadalie’, pp. 282–94.

147 NASA, NTS, 2092, 219/280, ‘Natives on Diamond Diggings, Failure of Employers to Meet Obligations’, petition signed by 43 workers on the diamond diggings sent to the Native Affairs Department, 30 June 1929. Poll tax was a tax levied on each individual, separate from hut taxes which were for dwellings. The Bambatha rebellion of 1906 is an example of widespread resistance to this tax.

148 NASA, NTS, 2092, 219/280, ‘Natives on Diamond Diggings, Failure of Employers to Meet Obligations’, letter from the Commissioner of Police to the Secretary of Native Affairs, 21 August 1929.

149 Ballinger Family Collection, A410, C2.3.7, Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union, ‘Membership Figures’, November 1928 – April 1929.

150 NASA, NTS, 9550, 164/400, letter from the Department of Native Affairs at Elandsputte to the Director of Native Labour at Johannesburg, 21 October 1929.

151 NASA, NTS, 9550, 164/400, letter from Du Toit, an Official of the Department of Native Affairs at Elandsputte to the Director of Native Labour at Johannesburg, 21 October 1929.

152 Ibid.

153 Letter from the Director of Native Labour to the Secretary of Native Affairs, 29 October 1929.

154 Ibid.

155 Dee, ‘Clements Kadalie’, p. 380. Also see L. Stewart, ‘“I See You in the Soil”: The ICU in the Western Transvaal, 1926–1934’ (MA thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 2021), pp. 163–97. Jack and Ray Simons suggest that Kadalie was an ‘arch-pilferer’ who stole money from the organisation and blamed communists (while, they argue, it was the communists who had been keeping the books clean). Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, pp. 353–86. This is challenged by Mia Roth who suggests that that it was members of the Communist Party that were ‘pilfering’. M. Roth, The Communist Party in South Africa: Racism, Eurocentricity and Moscow, 1921–1950 (Johannesburg, Partridge Africa, 2016), pp. 77–80.

156 ‘Kaniziqwlesele Kanobonyana Ezizinto Ma-Afrika [Don’t Focus on These Things, Africans]’, Workers’ Herald, 31 December 1928.

157 NASA, NTS, 2092, 219/280, Natives on diamond diggings, ‘Failure of Employers to Meet Obligations’, letter from the Secretary of Reverend Edward Paterson Saint Cyprian’s Native Mission to the Minister of Justice, 31 July 1931; NASA, NTS, 2092, 219/280, Natives on diamond diggings, ‘Failure of Employers to Meet Obligations’, letter from the Native Commissioner at Lichtenburg to the Secretary of Native Affairs, 24 November 1931. The struggle to profit from black labour did not end as the state still allowed white diggers to employ black workers despite being in economic turmoil.

158 L. Stewart, ‘“I See You” in the Soil’.

159 Baraganyi interview 2.

160 Van Onselen, The Seed is Mine, p. 146.

161 Ibid.

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Laurence Stewart

Laurence Stewart Researcher, History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Johannesburg, 2050. Email: [email protected]