Gold, Finance and Imperialism in South Africa, 1887–1902

This book provides a unique account of the financial and political history of the South African War by analysing the organisation and operations of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), the oldest existing stock exchange in the African continent. Identifying the JSE as the nexus between international finance, South African gold mining and British imperialism, the book exposes the financial and political connections between Johannesburg, Pretoria, London, and Paris during the final stage of the imperial ‘scramble for southern Africa.’ Gold mining presented the South African Republic (ZAR) and the whole southern African regional economy with a long-term economic future and new prospects of industrialisation. However, this socio-economic transformation was dependent on extensive capital investments and the institutionalisation of a coercive labour regime based on racial discrimination. This monograph provides the first empirical examination of how international finance, imperial politics, and racialised industrial relations became entrenched in a key financial intermediary in colonial South Africa - first in Kimberley in the Cape Colony, and then in Johannesburg in the ZAR. By studying the Johannesburg capital market’s social microstructures, the author demonstrates how colonial and international financial intermediaries underwrote and financed the largest wave of mining investments in Africa prior to the First World War. Filling an important gap in literature on nineteenth-century British imperialism and Anglo-African-Afrikaner relations, this insightful book uses the JSE as a lens to carefully expose the structures and agency of global finance in the outbreak of the South African War, and the making of South Africa as a unified colonial state. 

“Weaving together previous literature with novel research in a number of historical archives, Mariusz Lukasiewicz contributes with a richly detailed narrative of the role that the Johannesburg Stock Exchange played in the early formation of capitalism in South Africa, until and including the outbreak of the South African War.”

—Klas Rönnbäck, Professor in Economic History, Department of Economy and Society, University of Gothenburg

"Lukasiewicz’s engaging and deeply researched early history of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) employs the tools of a business historian to unpack the wider history of the industrialisation and internationalisation of the South African economy in the context of colonialism, mining finance and the racial organization of the economy. By using business records from archives in four different countries to unpack the many complex connections between business, government, domestic elites, and international stakeholders, he presents a new perspective on key historical events in nineteenth-century South African historiography through the lens of the JSE’s involvement [...] Lukasiewicz’s book is a deeply researched study of a financial organization and its intimate links with British imperialism and South Africa’s settler colonialism."

 —Stephanie Decker, Professor in Strategy, Department of Strategy and International Business, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham

"Lukasiewicz presents a fresh perspective on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s (JSE) formative role in shaping the financial and political contours of colonial South Africa and its interface with global markets. By providing new revelations about the JSE’s strategic adaptations in an era of international market exclusions, the work signals a revival of academic interest in South African financial history. This is important because of the enduring influence of these historical financial structures and the many lessons that remain relevant to contemporary market challenges.”

—Johan Fourie, Professor of Economic History, Stellenbosch University

"Based on an impressive array of primary source material from the archives of financial institutions in Johannesburg, Cape Town, London and Paris, and the leading financial newspapers of the period, [this] book underscores the role of international finance capital in the spread of British imperialism. It sheds light on the complex interplay of local and global finance capital, British-Afrikaner politics in South Africa (centred on the ZAR) and imperial politics. Consequently, this volume is much more than a study of the JSE as an institution, though it highlights its internal politics and, especially its significant but neglected role in the Jameson Raid. Indeed, this book highlights the role of the JSE in the clash between British imperialism and Afrikaner republicanism, culminating in the South African War of 1899-1902 [...] Dr. Lukasiewicz deserves commendation for producing this illuminating study of actors and institutions at the intersection of trans-imperial and global finance and politics.”

—Ayodeji Olukoju, Professor of History, University of Lagos

"The idea of Capital is important in South Africa, but it has not attracted very much serious investigation since Herbert Frankel's work in the 1960s. In this book, Mariusz Lukasiewicz maps the local political and international financial connections that created South African mining capital in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. His story places the dusty mining camp in the crosshairs of investment flows from London and Paris and a network of stock exchanges across Europe before the start of the twentieth century."

—Keith Breckenridge, Professor and acting Co-Director, Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER), Johannesburg

Mariusz Lukasiewicz is a Lecturer in African History at the Institute of African Studies, Leipzig University, in Germany.