History of South Africa podcast · Desmond Latham
Episode 263 - How Black Voters Helped Elect Cecil Rhodes: Kimberley and the Cape Franchise, 1879
February 22, 2026·20 min·1 clip
A Boer diamond smuggler shot his horse, slit its stomach open to retrieve gems, then sang a taunting song as police watched.
As heard by us
Kimberley becomes a compact lens on racial law, Black labor, and Cecil Rhodes's hardening ambitions.
Kimberley comes through as more than a diamond boomtown: a charged political landscape where racial law, Black labor, and Cecil Rhodes's ambitions converge.
Why you'd press play
Want the Kimberley glitter without losing sight of the harder questions under the dust?
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