Most of these originally settled in the Cape Colony, but were absorbed into the Afrikaner and Afrikaans population, because they had religious and ethnic similarities to the Dutch and French.

In 1652 the Dutch East India Company's established a supplies station at the Cape of Good Hope under the command of Jan van Riebeeck.

[4] Bergtheil saw the potential of European settlement along the coast and approached the British colonial office for immigrants.

Thirty-five peasant families (about 188 people) from the Osnabrück-Bremen district accepted his offer and arrived in Natal on 23 March 1848.

The settlers soon abandoned cotton in favour of market gardening, and when their five-year contracts with Bergtheil ended many did not renew them.