Illinois Country
During the French colonial period of Illinois, Illinois was a part of the region known as the "Illinois Country", which also loosely encompassed lands that would become the future U.S. states of Indiana, Wisconsin, and Missouri. The Illinois Country was part of New France and was governed by its slavery laws. French settlers first brought African slaves into the Illinois Country from Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) around 1720 under the terms of the Code Noir, which defined the legal conditions of slavery in the French Empire and restricted the activities of free Negro people. Although older accounts claim that Philip François Renault imported five hundred Negro slaves to the Illinois Country in 1721, it is likely that he imported far fewer. A document "from 1720 describes the Jesuits as owning sixteen to eighteen slaves, 'Negroes and Savages .'" After an unsuccessful attempt at lead mining, Renault founded St. Philippe, Illinois, in 1723, and used his enslaved people for agricultural purposes to produce crops.