The history of Indian South Africans begin as early as 1652 with the arrival of Muslim exiles at the Cape under the Dutch East India Company Rule. In Natal, the arrival of the Indentured Indian in 1860 marked the beginnings of an organised scheme whereby approximately 152,184 Indians arrived to seek gainful employment in a fledgling sugar industry. While many worked on the sugar fields, others worked on the wattle and tea plantations and in the coal-mines . Some came as domestic servants as Dhobis, waiters and house-servants and were able to command a respectable salary of 20 shillings per month.