Chechnya’s main ethnic group is the Chechens, with minorities of Russians and Ingush. The Chechens and the Ingush are both Muslim and are two of the many Caucasian mountain peoples whose language belongs to the Nakh group. Fiercely independent, the Chechens and other Caucasian tribes mounted a prolonged resistance to Russian conquest from the 1830s through the ’50s under the Muslim leader Shāmil.