The history of large-scale slavery in the region which later became the State of Missouri began in 1720, when a French merchant named Philippe François Renault brought about 500 slaves of African descent from Saint-Domingue up the Mississippi River to work in lead mines in what is now southeastern Missouri and southern Illinois. These people were the first enslaved Africans brought en masse to the middle Mississippi River Valley. Prior to Renault's enterprise, slavery in Missouri under French colonial rule had been practiced on a much smaller scale as compared to elsewhere in the French colonies.