AfricaBib 
bibliographic database
| Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Speculation and exploitation: the Southern Rhodesian mining industry in the Company era |
| Author: | Phimister, Ian |
| Year: | 2003 |
| Periodical: | Historia: amptelike orgaan |
| Volume: | 48 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Pages: | 88-97 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | Zimbabwe Great Britain |
| Subjects: | colonialism work environment gold mining mining companies |
| Abstract: | That mining in general and goldmining in particular in colonial Zimbabwe turned on the exploitation of cheap black labour is well established in the subject's historiography. So too is its periodization. An initial period stretching from the start of the 1890s until roughly the turn of the 20th century, during which the Southern Rhodesian mining industry was characterized by speculation and fraud, is seen as having been followed by one lasting until c. 1910, in which the industry's profitability was secured largely through ruthless policies of cost minimization. While some scholars, however, noted that speculation and exploitation occasionally existed in the same period, the links between the two have never been explored. By means of a case study, this paper traces the origin, rise and fall of the Ayrshire Mine, touted in its heyday as the richest gold prospect in Southern Rhodesia, by way of suggesting that speculation did not so much give way to production and exploitation as develop an intimate relationship with them. The period covered falls largely between 1895 and 1905. Ref., sum. in English and Afrikaans. (Also published in: Zambezia, vol. 30, no. 2 (2003), p. 178-189.) [Journal abstract, edited] |
