More than a million settlers who had crossed the Mississippi within a few years had shunned her contaminated borders for the free air of otherwise less attractive localities. Nor had the Slaveholders gone into the country in the numbers that were expected. Less than 20,000 had settled there, which was a small showing against nearly 40,000 in Kentucky and 55,000 in Virginia. All these had conspicuously small holdings. Nearly one-third of them owned but one slave, and considerably more than one-half had less than five. Only one man had taken as many as 200 slaves into the State. 9 The Census of 1860 showed Missouri to rank eleventh among the Slave States, according to the following table of the number of slaves in each: 1. Virginia.........490,865 10. Texas..........182,566 2. Georgia.........462,198 11. Missouri.......114,931 3. Mississippi.....436,631 12. Arkansas.......111,114 4. Alabama.........435,080 13. Maryland....... 87,189 5. South Carolina..402,406 14. Florida.........61,745 6. Louisiana.......331,726 15. Delaware....... 1,798 7. North Carolina...331,059 16. New Jersey...... 18 8. Tennessee.......275,719 17. Nebraska....... 15 9. Kentucky........225,483 18. Kansas......... 2 There were 3,185 slaves in the District of Columbia and 29 in the Territory of Utah, with all the rest of the country absolutely free. The immigrant Slaveowners promptly planted themselves where they could command the great highway of the Missouri River, taking up broad tracts of the fertile lands on both sides of the stream. The Census of 1860 showed that of the 114,965 slaves held in the State, 50,280 were in the 12 Counties along the Missouri: Boone........... ....5,034 Jackson..............3,944 Calloway.............4,257 Lafayette............6,357 Chariton.............2,837 Pike.................4,056 Clay.................3,456 Platte...............3,313 Cooper...............3,800 St. Charles..........2,181 Howard...............5,889 Saline...............4,876 Two-thirds of all the slaves in the State were held within 20 miles of the Missouri River. As everywhere, the Slaveowners exerted an influence immeasurably disproportionate to their numbers, intelligence and wealth. 10 A very large proportion of the immigration had not been of a character to give much promise as to the future.