White Croats

The White Croats (Croatian: Bijeli Hrvati; Polish: Biali Chorwaci; Slovak: Bieli Chorváti; Ukrainian: Білі хорвати, romanized: Bili khorvaty), also known simply as Croats, were a group of Early Slavic tribes that lived between East Slavic and West Slavic tribes in the historical region of Galicia north of the Carpathian Mountains (in modern Western Ukraine and Southeastern-Southern Poland), and possibly in Northeastern Bohemia.

Debates continue over the origin of the Croats and related topics. Their ethnonym is usually considered to be of Iranian origin, and historians regard them one of the oldest Slavic tribes or tribal alliances that formed prior to the 6th century CE. They were an East Slavic tribe, but bordered both East Slavic groups (Dulebes and their related Buzhans and Volhynians, Tivertsi, and Ulichs) in Western Ukraine; and West Slavic tribes (Lendians and Vistulans) in southeastern Poland, controlling an important trade route from East to Central Europe. Archaeologically, the Croats were mostly related to the Korchak and Luka-Raikovetska cultures identified with the Sclaveni (while their connection to the Antes and to the Penkovka culture remains a matter of dispute). Their area is characterized by use of stone defenses, tiled tombs (and kurgan-like tombs), stone ovens, and many large, fortified settlements and cult buildings. They practiced Slavic paganism. Foreign medieval authors documented the Croats in historical sources and legends, and had their own origo gentis.

In the late-6th and early-7th centuries, some of the Croats migrated from their homeland, White or Great Croatia in the Carpathians, to the Roman province of Dalmatia (in present-day Croatia along the Adriatic Sea), becoming ancestors of the modern South Slavic Croats. The Pannonian Avars plundered the Roman provinces, before being conquered by the White Croats, where they then settled and soon started accepting Christianity during the time of Porga (fl. c. 7th century), the first known archon of the Duchy of Croatia.