De Beers: Encyclopedia II - De Beers - History

De Beers - History

De Beers was founded on 13 March 1888 by Cecil John Rhodes. In the 20th century the Oppenheimer family became the major shareholders. Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, his son Harry Oppenheimer and his grandson Nicky Oppenheimer have been chairmen of the company. Also see Alex Oppenheimer, heir and relative.

The company's name comes from Johannes Nicholas de Beer and Diederik Arnoldus de Beer, two Afrikaner farmers on whose farm, called Vooruitzicht, near the confluence of the Orange River and the Vaal River, diamonds were discovered. The brothers were not able to protect the farm from the ensuing diamond rush, and sold it for £6300. Two diamond mines formed on the site, known as the "Big Hole" or Premier mine. Although the brothers did not become the owners of the mines, one of the mines was named after them. Cecil Rhodes and Charles Rudd gained control of both the De Beers mine and the Kimberley, South Africa mine and merged them, forming De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited.

Because of South Africa's labor demand in the mid to late 19th century, De Beers constructed the first private prisons in South Africa, which the state filled. De Beers provided the funds to incarcerate the prisoners and also paid the state to allow the company to use the prisoners for prison labor. By the end of the 19th century, De Beers was using over 10,000 prison laborers daily. The majority of the prisoners were incarcerated because of strict apartheid laws, similar to the Pass Law which was enacted in 1952.[2]

DeBeers is currently building a retail location in the Beverly Hills section of Los Angeles. This is DeBeers' second retail location in the U.S. The first one is located in New York City.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki