The first Christians to settle on the territories around the Don were the Jassi and Kosogi tribes of the Khazar Kaghanate of the 7th to 10th centuries. After the fall of the Golden Horde in 1480, more Russian colonists started to expand onto this land from the Novgorod Republic after the Battle of Shelon (1471), and from the neighboring Principality of Ryazan. Until the end of the 16th century, the Don Cossacks inhabited independent free territories.