The object of the plan, drawn up by his minister Pablo de Olavide, administrator of Andalusia, was to populate the area around Despeñaperros gorge.

Known as "the gateway to Andalusia"; this pass was a notorious point on the Cádiz-to-Madrid royal highway for bandits.

[3] Six thousand Catholic settlers arrived from Belgium, Germany, Austria and Switzerland to take advantage of the generous offers of land and livestock being made to colonizers (five chickens, five goats, five sheep, two cows, and a sow per family).

One can still find people in this area with Germanic surnames such as Eisman, Minch, Clap, Smidt, Ming and Kobler.

The town's relatively recent history, as well as its northern European target population, explains its unusually regular, colonial-style grid layout, with wide avenues, as opposed to the more common winding narrow streets typical of the Moorish-patterned towns in Andalusia.