Following the successful uprising of Bohdan Knelnytsky against the Polish crown in the mid 17th century, Ukrainian lands east of the Dnipro River, the Cossack Hetmanate, became briefly independent and then became an autonomous part of Russia. In this area, many of the Polish nobles were expelled and Polish political influence was curtailed. Regions west of the river, however, remained part of Poland-Lithuania for approximately another 150 years, retained their Polish orientation and were the stage of ongoing Polish colonization. By the late 18th century, approximately 240,000 people of the Volhynian, Podilian and Kiev regions, or 11% of the population, were Roman Catholics, most of whom were Poles. Approximately half of this number had arrived in the early 18th century.