economic effects on the home areas of the migrants. Family life was dis-
rupted for long periods, and women became responsible for the economic
and social management of households.
The mining companies dominated Kimberley and overrode the mer-
chants and traders on most issues when interests clashed. At one stage, the
companies even planned to make white as well as black workers live in
compounds and submit to intimate body searches for diamonds, but that
was too great a departure from colonial norms, and the companies desisted
in the face of opposition from the local tradespeople as well as the white
workers. Since as white men they had the vote, white workers were able to
realize a common interest with capitalism in entrenching a racial division
in the first industrial city in South Africa. That was a momentous precedent
for the structure of urban life and industry throughout
the region. The
arrangements in Kimberley foreshadowed later refinements of urban segre-
gation, labor control, and all-male hostels for migrant black workers.
In 1886, at a time when the diamond industry was approaching its
mature form, gold was discovered thirty miles south of Pretoria, the capital
of the South African Republic. The deposits were uniquely rich. Outcrops