Dixie (also known as Dixieland)

Dixie, or Dixieland, is a nickname associated with the American South—in particular, the states that left the Union to join the Confederacy at the start of the Civil War in 1861. While the term became popularized in the 1859 song “Dixie,” the name was used to refer to the southern United States well before the song was written; however, historians remain unsure of the exact origins of the term. Despite the association with the South, Dixie’s geographical boundaries have shifted over the years and remain loosely defined in the twenty-first century. The modern concept of Dixie includes a considerably smaller number of states than it did in the past and may be based more on acceptance of Southern culture than on location. To some people, the term “Dixie” is now viewed as problematic because of its connection to the region’s history of slavery.

Background

The British began settling colonies in what would become the United States in 1607, and by 1732 had established thirteen colonies along the eastern seaboard. Almost from the start, the colonies were divided by geographic and economic differences. The northern colonies had higher populations, larger cities, and less available farmland. Eventually, the North developed an industrialized economy that relied on manufacturing and immigrant-based labor. The southern colonies were more rural, with larger farms and an agriculture-based economy. The South needed more people to work on farms and plantations and relied on slave labor, particularly in the cotton industry. Initially, slavery was legal in all thirteen colonies, but by the late eighteenth century it began to be abolished in the North and was completely outlawed there by 1804.

After the United States won its independence from Britain, slavery became a bitterly divisive issue for the young nation. As the country began to expand westward in the early nineteenth century, the question over whether the new states would be slave or free only increased the tension. By 1861, the thirty-four states were split into nineteen free states and fifteen slave states. That same year, the animosity between North and South exploded into the Civil War, when eleven of the fifteen slave states voted to leave the Union and form the Confederate States of America. Those states were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Four border slave states—Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri—remained loyal to the Union and did not join the Confederacy.

Overview

In 1859, Ohio songwriter Daniel Decatur Emmett published the song “Dixie,” or “Dixie’s Land,” as a musical tribute to the American South. The song was part of a minstrel show, a type of performance in which White singers and actors would perform in blackface, pretending to be “happy” slaves. “Dixie” became very well-known across the United States and was even adopted as an informal national anthem by the Confederate states. As a result of the song’s popularity, the term “Dixie” began to be widely accepted as a reference to the southern states.

However, the term had been used in that context for decades prior to the song’s publication, although its origins remain a mystery. The most likely explanation is that Dixie comes from the name of the Mason-Dixon Line, the boundary between the states of Pennsylvania and Maryland. The boundary was drawn up in 1767 by surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon to resolve a border dispute between the colonies. Over time, the line became an informal geographical marker dividing the northern free states and the southern slave states. Another theory holds that the term comes from ten-dollar bank notes issued by the Citizens’ Bank of New Orleans. The back of the notes featured the word dix, the French word for “ten,” a remnant of the city’s colonization by France in 1718. The bills were known as dixies, leading to speculation the term grew to represent the city, and eventually, Louisiana and the South as well.

Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the term Dixie became even more ingrained in the American consciousness as a reference to the South. However, defining the states that constituted the South was a difficult proposition. Using the Mason-Dixon Line as a definition for the South would have included Maryland, Kentucky, and almost any state south of Pennsylvania. Yet many Southerners did not recognize these border states as distinctively southern states. In general, the term Dixie was used to refer to the eleven states that formed the Confederacy in 1861.

As the twentieth century progressed, the concept of the American South began to narrow. Some of this was due to northern migration to southern states and a slow erosion of what people viewed as traditional southern culture. By the twenty-first century, informal polls about which states are considered part of the South focused on a core group of seven states—Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Some polls included Florida or Arkansas.

As the concept of the American South began to shift, the term Dixie also began to slowly fade in popularity. A study published in 2010 examined the use of the word Dixie in business names across the South over the course of several decades, and found its use had declined substantially. The study also noted the removal of the name from several state highways and on Alabama license plates, which once read “Heart of Dixie.”

Sociologists theorize that the declining popularity of the name may be related to the growing number of northern transplants to the region. While many southerners retain a connection to their heritage, northerners do not identify as easily with the term. Another factor in the decline of the name Dixie was due to concerns it glorified the era of slavery. In the late 2010s and into the 2020s, several communities, schools, and businesses either stopped using the term or considered doing so because of its perceived racist connotations. In June 2020, the popular country music group the Dixie Chicks made the highest-profile change when they officially dropped the term from their name.

Bibliography

Abadi, Mark. “Why No One Can Agree Where the South Really Is.” Business Insider, 3 May 2018, www.businessinsider.com/south-states-usa-2018-5. Accessed 3 Jan. 2025.

Alonso, Johanna. “Tackling Racism’s Legacy Through a Fight Song.” Inside Higher Education, 24 Oct. 2022, www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/10/25/alabama-students-want-dixie-removed-fight-song. Accessed 3 Jan. 2025.

Andrews, Evan. “Why Is the South Known as ‘Dixie’?” History.com, 28 Nov. 2018, www.history.com/news/why-is-the-south-known-as-dixie. Accessed 3 Jan. 2025.

Cooper, Christopher A., and H. Gibbs Knotts. “Declining Dixie: Regional Identification in the Modern American South.” Western Carolina University, March 2010, www.wcu.edu/WebFiles/PDFs/social‗forces.pdf. Accessed 3 Jan. 2025.

Cox, Karen L. Dreaming of Dixie: How the South Was Created in American Popular Culture. University of North Carolina Press, 2011.

Elassar, Alaa. “How the Term ‘Dixie’ Came to Define the South.” CNN, 27 June 2020, www.cnn.com/2020/06/27/us/dixie-term-south-racism-black-lives-matter-trnd/index.html. Accessed 3 Jan. 2025.

Hardy, Michael C. “Look Away Dixie Land.” HistoryNet, 2020, www.historynet.com/look-away-dixie-land.htm. Accessed 3 Jan. 2025.

Hickey, Walt. “Which States Are in the South?” FiveThirtyEight, 30 Apr. 2014, fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-states-are-in-the-south/. Accessed 3 Jan. 2025.

Zimmer, Ben. “What Dixie Really Means.” Atlantic, 27 June 2020, www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/06/what-dixie-really-means/613585/. Accessed 3 Jan. 2025.