South Africans Demand The Return Of ‘The Great Star Of Africa’ Worth $400M, And Other Treasures ‘Stolen’ By British Monarch

After 70 years of reign­ing as the United Kingdom’s monarch, Queen Elizabeth II will be laid to rest on Sept. 19, but just min­utes after her death was announced on Sept. 8, there were calls for her to return some of the roy­al fam­i­ly jew­els from South Africa.

Two pieces of the largest dia­mond ever dis­cov­ered are affixed in the British Sovereign’s Royal Scepter and the Imperial State Crown. The Star of Africa, or Cullinan, is a 530-carat fine-qual­i­ty col­or­less dia­mond, the largest cut of its kind in the world. It is mount­ed in the scepter and worth an esti­mat­ed $400 mil­lion. The Star of Africa II, or Cullinan II, is 317-carat dia­mond is in the crown. It is unclear how much the sec­ond dia­mond is worth.

Hours before her death, the Twitter account African Archives shared a pic­ture of the queen in the Imperial State Crown ref­er­enc­ing the big­ger dia­mond also known as “The Great Star of Africa” as “stolen” from South Africa. The tweet went viral and picked up speed after news of Elizabeth II’s death broke.

“We need what’s ours,” wrote Twitter user, @Lxngelo, who lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

The two gems were cut from a 3,106-carat dia­mond that was found in Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1905. It is the largest dia­mond dis­cov­ered, weigh­ing 1.33 pounds, accord­ing to History​.com. It was report­ed­ly pre­sent­ed to the reign­ing British monarch, King Edward VII, Elizabeth II’s great-grand­fa­ther, for his birth­day in 1907. The gov­ern­ment of a for­mer South African province, Transvaal, report­ed­ly gift­ed the dia­mond to Edward VII a year after Britain restored its inter­nal self-government.

Many believed that the full dia­mond, worth $2 bil­lion by some esti­mates, was stolen from indige­nous South Africans. Transvaal was over­whelm­ing­ly Boer, South Africans of Dutch, German, or Huguenot descent. The dia­mond was named after Sir Thomas Cullinan, the own­er of the mine, a white man who was born in the British colony Cape Colony.

“She wore this a cen­tu­ry lat­er in a time when the descen­dants of those minework­ers live the lega­cy of that plun­der, still earn a pit­tance and get slaugh­tered at Marikana for demand­ing human stan­dards of work­ing and liv­ing,” wrote Mikaela Nhondo Erskog, an African edu­ca­tor and researcher.

Two Boer provinces, includ­ing Transvaal, fought for their free­dom from Britain from 1899 to 1902. The British gov­ern­ment says the gift sym­bol­ized the heal­ing rela­tion­ship between the two coun­tries after the wars“The British claim that it was giv­en to them as a sym­bol of friend­ship and peace yet it was dur­ing colo­nial­ism. The British then replaced the name ‘The Great Star of Africa’ with name of Chairman of Mine ‘Thomas Cullinan,’” Africa Archives wrote.

The roy­al fam­i­ly has used the scepter in every coro­na­tion since 1661. The Imperial State Crown was made for King George VI in 1937 and is worn by the monarch when leav­ing Westminster Abbey after each coro­na­tion and on spe­cial occa­sions, includ­ing the open­ing of par­lia­ment. Luis Botha, who would become the first prime min­is­ter of the Union of South Africa, peti­tioned in 1907 that the dia­mond be pur­chased for £150,000, or near­ly $173,000, and pre­sent­ed to the British

The whole dia­mond was cut into nine large stones and about 100 small­er ones, accord­ing to Britannica. The queen also report­ed­ly owned the next two biggest stones in her brooch, known as “Granny Chips.”

During a 1995 vis­it to South Africa, Black town­ship lead­ers called on Elizabeth II to return the Great Star of Africa. The Azanian People’s Organization claimed the dia­mond was “stolen from the trea­sures of the Azanian (African) soil.”

“She must be remind­ed that the dia­mond belongs to the Black peo­ple of this coun­try, and to them alone,” said Azapo spokesper­son Zithulele Nxawe.

Buckingham Palace replied with a reminder that the dia­mond was a “gift.”

Although, the U.K. and some parts of the Commonwealth have declared a peri­od of mourn­ing lead­ing up to Elizabeth II’s funer­al, many said they could not feel sor­row for the queen’s death in light of her indul­gence in the pletho­ra of wealth the roy­al fam­i­ly accu­mu­lat­ed from col­o­niza­tion and nev­er acknowl­edg­ing the atroc­i­ties behind them. Some South Africans are urg­ing King Charles III, Elizabeth II’s suc­ces­sor, to return the jewels.

“We do not mourn the death of Elizabeth, because to us her death is a reminder of a very trag­ic peri­od in this coun­try and Africa’s his­to­ry. Britain, under the lead­er­ship of the roy­al fam­i­ly, took over con­trol of this ter­ri­to­ry that would become South Africa in 1795 from Batavian con­trol, and took per­ma­nent con­trol of the ter­ri­to­ry in 1806,” said Economic Freedom Fighters, a pan-Africanist polit­i­cal par­ty in South Africa, in a statement.

“From that moment onwards, native peo­ple of this land have nev­er known peace, nor have they ever enjoyed the fruits of the rich­es of this land, rich­es which were and still are uti­lized for the enrich­ment of the British roy­al fam­i­ly and those who look like them.”