The Opportunity for Loss is Fully Appreciated, But

Abstract

This article reconstructs a history of diamond mining in the Gold Coast (colonial Ghana), with special emphasis on contentions about diamond stealing and government policy choices that shaped the making of the industry. Beginning in 1949 with a committee formed to investigate African diamond mining, and suggest ways to improve their operations in the industry, the article backtracks three decades and poses the following questions: Why did the 1949 enquiry target African diamond diggers alone when others were also involved in this extractive enterprise? Did the decision to prioritize rather than suppress the business interest of African diggers conflict the interests of the government and of expatriate firms? Building on existing literature on diamond mining in the Gold Coast, this article attempts to answer the above questions by introducing new archival evidence to the scholarship. The article argues that in the 1940s, when European companies grew suspicious that an increase in African-produced diamonds corresponding with a peak in theft from their properties, official colonial policy encouraged rather than impinged mining African enterprise.