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Updated: August 3, 2024
First among the Americans that Rhodes brought to Kimberley was Gardner F. Williams, a Michigander who became General Manager of the DeBeers Company in 1887 and upon the consolidation, assumed the same post with the united interests.
Rhodes sent for N'jube and asked him if he wanted to marry the Fingo girl. When he replied that he did, the great man said: "Go down to the DeBeers office, get £50 and marry the girl. I will then give you a job for life and build you a house." N'jube took the hint and the money and married the girl.
With three unarmed companions, one of them an interpreter, he set up a camp in the wilds and sent emissaries to the syndicate of the chiefs who had succeeded Lobengula. He had become Premier of the Cape Colony, was head of the great DeBeers Diamond Syndicate, and had other immense interests. He was also Managing Director of the British South Africa Company and the biggest stockholder.
In exchange for having subscribed heavily to the first issue of British South Africa Company stock, the DeBeers which Rhodes formed received a monopoly on the diamond output and with it the assurance of a rigid enforcement of the so-called Illicit Diamond Buying Act.
This incident shows the extent of the Rhodes resource, for a man at Kimberly told me that Rhodes knew beforehand exactly how many diamonds Barnato had and got the right sized bucket. Rhodes immediately strode from the room, got the time he wanted and consummated the consolidation which made the name DeBeers synonymous with the diamond output of the world.
History contains no more striking contrast perhaps than the spectacle of this tall curly-haired boy with the Caesar-like face studying a Greek book while he managed a diamond-washing machine with his foot. Rhodes developed the mines known as the DeBeers group.
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