The Witwatersrand Reef area in Johannesburg is the source of 40% of all gold that has ever been extracted from the Earth. Ever.

Where did all that wealth go? Why are millions of Africans in South Africa some of the poorest people in the world?

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Gold was first discovered in the reef between 1884 and 1886. This led to the Witwatersrand Gold rush and the formation of the company Gold Fields in 1887 by Cecil Rhodes which in turn led to the war between boers and the British in 1899. Europen going to war over African gold.

The native inhabitants of this golden area mainly BaTswana and AmaNdebele had been forcibly removed from the area in the 1830s by boers ("farmers"; hence to this day "land" is intentionally confused with "farming", as prior to gold discovery that's all boers ever used land for)

The boers who now occupied the land on which gold was found continued to collect royalties from the mining companies which were largely owned by European immigrants who had flocked in droves to profit from the gold rush.

The gold rush resulted in wealthy white miners known as Randlords who built mansions and estates in Parktown Ridge, some of which can still be seen today in the Johannesburg suburbs

Some of the companies founded during this time include AngloAmerican, Gold Fields and  Rand Mines. Subsequent gold profits were the biggest catalyst to boer domination of the economic and political landscape of South Africa and the very foundation of Apartheid

The gold mining rush led to boer nationalism as they made segregation laws to put whites above black in the mines. Blacks were made to do the most brutal and exhausting of work. People knew their "station" from birth: those who worked the hardest - Blacks - received the least.

The inter-generational wealth that has resulted from gold mining is the reason why whites understand the importance of owning land, and why they will use all sorts of tricks, lies and threats to hold on to it.

As the mining companies were British, they simply dug up the gold and sent it to London. When the boers took political power they opened their own mining houses. Due to fear of an uprising by Natives, most of this gold was stored in London and Switzerland, where it remains today.

Today South Africa holds 50% of all the planet's gold resources and 40% of all gold reserves. Will Black South Africans profit from the land on which this gold resides or will they continue to wallow in poverty while foreigners plunder the loot?