Amsterd Antwerp Sth Africa Brasil N.Y TAviv diamonds

When the Jew­s were expelled from Portugal from 1497, the specialist jewellers and others fled North and ended up in Ant­werp­. Antwerp was still un­der Spanish rule but it had a milder form of the religious opp­res­­sion than that found the Iberian Peninsula. At first, Antwerp seemed a safe place for Jews to settle down and con­tinue their jewell­ery art. Alas religious intolerance reached Antwerp a few years later and another home was needed.

diamonds
displayed by The Diamond Trading Co., Amsterdam

In time the refugees reached the Republic of the Neth­erlands which had rebelled against Spain in the 1570s, won its freedom and gave its citizens considerable freedom. The Netherlands was then the most tolerant country in Europe, so a large part of the Jewish population moved there. With them came the specialist know­ledge and craftsmanship of diamond cutting and polishing.

At the time, Jews and Conversos were creating a trading network that tied together ports in Portugal, Netherlands and Brasil. This network became the chief Dutch commercial circuit in the early C17th and offered support to Jews etc. This circuit enabled Brasilian Conversos to return to Judaism in Am­st­er­dam, and Ams­terdam Jews to establish a port in Brasil. In the process, the Jews of Recife Brasil and in Amst­er­dam remained closely con­n­ect­ed, especially after war closed off acc­ess to the network's Portuguese ports . 

Amsterdam Jews arrived in force in Recife during the 1630s, but travelled back to Amst­er­dam in 1645-54, since the Dutch colony in Brasil was shrinking and event­ually captured by Portuguese troops. Jews had contributed commerc­ially and militarily to this brief colony.

In 1725 diamond fields were discovered in Brasil, and Amst­er­dam gained the monopoly on diamond imports. From then on, Amsterdam became the City of Dia­monds! When the diamond fields of Brasil began to dry up, unempl­oy­ment hit the industry and many diamond cutting/pol­ishing factories went bankrupt. Thankfully diamond supplies were discovered in South Africa. Perfect timing!

Cape Town Diamond Museum
Mapping history of the South African diamond industry back to 1897

After Belgium won independence in 1830 several diamond pol­ish­ers from Amsterdam settled there, maintaining a limited level of market activity. Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe after the pogroms of the early 1880s, a policy of industrial encourage­ment adopted by the Antwerp municipal government and the crisis in Holland brought about a reawakening in the Belgian diamond industry.

In 1890, Dutch King William III approved legislation for the Fair Society for Diamond Trade. Thus the wor­ld’s first Diamond Exchange could open in Amsterdam. In fact until WW2, Amsterdam remained a world centre for the trade.

The first dia­mond in South Africa was found in early 1867 on the land of a poor Boer farmer - on the Orange River in the Cape of Good Hope Colony where thous­ands of Dutch and English settlers trav­elled, to farm and raise livestock. The farmer’s family collected pretty stones, show­ing one to the civil commissioner in Colesberg. He pron­oun­ced it a 21.25 carat diamond, which was purchased for £500 by Sir Phillip Wodehouse, Cape Colony Governor!

In 1870 diamond workers in Amsterdam were receiving good wages. But the in­cr­easingly high customs duties were said to threaten Amsterdam’s position as leader of the diam­ond industry. Amster­d­am’s diamond cutters and polishers increasingly looked abroad. 

This discovery prompted Boer farmers on the rivers to look carefully for stones. Small parties of prospectors moved into the region to search. Over the following months, additional diamonds continued to be found, and by 1869 these river diggings had yielded hundreds of diamonds. Soon thousands of people laid claim to land, exploring for diam­onds over the Cape Colony. Rich deposits were found, la­t­er becom­ing the famous diamond mines of South Africa. And bec­ause of the special relationship which existed between Holland and South Africa, Amst­er­dam was the heart of the diamond trade

De Beers Group was founded in 1888 by British busin­essman Cecil Rhod­es, financed by a South African diamond magnate and the London-based Rothschild Bank. This international cor­poration spec­ial­is­ed in diamond exploration, diamond min­ing, diamond retail, diam­ond trading and industrial diamond manu­fact­ur­ing sectors.

Royal Coster Diamonds,
opened 1840, Amsterdam

Estab­lish­ing factories & importing workers from Netherlands by the hund­reds, the Dutch exodus to the USA transformed New York. Within a few years, the new entrepot had super­seded that of Ams­terdam to become the dia­mond market of the world. Centred in down­town Manhattan, the emerg­ing diamond trade of the late C19th added another thriving centre of jewellery making and distribution

In 1926 Ernest Oppen­heimer (1880–1957), a German-South African who had ear­lier founded mining company Anglo Amer­ic­an with American fin­ancier JP Morgan, was elected to the board of De Beers. Oppen­heimer con­solidated De Beers until his death. By the early C21st, De Beers control­led 80-85% of rough diamond dist­rib­ution in 35 count­ries incl Bot­swana, Namibia, South Africa, Canada, India, Israel and Austral­ia. Competition has since dis­mant­led any monopoly, though De Beers still sells c35% of the world's rough diamond product­ion globally via The Diamond Trading Co.

We buy gold and diamonds, jewellers cashing in on gold's rally, 

Diamond District New York, 

Wall St Journal

Towards the late C19th and early in the C20th, art­icles about the US diamond trade frequently appeared in the Amer­ic­an press, incl­uding Scientific American and Ladies’ Home Journal. The published articles noted the very large numbers of Dutchmen in the industry, both as businessmen and as workers. Historians were pleased to fin a complex, dynamic and global Jewish economy that bound Cape Town and London, Amsterdam and New York together.

By the early 1920s, more diamond merch­ants began to con­t­emplate a move uptown, to midtown Manhattan. The prospect of in­hab­iting up-to-date quarters was one incen­tive; Grand Central Station’s prox­imity was another. Plus the downtown jewellery trade was incr­eas­ingly pushed out by the growing financial services industry.

Israel World Diamond Centre

Wiki

In Israel, the diamond industry began in 1937 when a quality polishing plant was opened by WW2 refugees from the Netherlands. In 1938 the 15% import duty on imported rough stones was removed and within a few years the diamond industry employed 3,300 skilled workers. It is the world's largest trading centre for buying, selling, cutting and polishing large diamonds.