Home : A Little Redneck - A Lot Southern :

What About Dixie?

As it happens, the earliest example of Dixie that anybody has been able to find is in the name of the song, originally entitled “Dixie’s Land.” Dan Emmett, the minstrel showman who composed it in 1859, said that he’d heard show people refer to the South as Dixie when he was performing in the 1850s or before. If Dixie Ain't Playin ... It Otta Be!

Different dictionaries give different explanations of the origin of this name for the South. Prior to the Civil War at least one bank, the Citizens Bank of Louisiana, issued notes that had dix on them. The difficulty in deriving Dixie from dix is that as far as anybody knows, the word on the notes was never used to refer specifically to Louisiana, or to New Orleans, or even to money itself.

Of all the theories that have been proposed, the most likely one is that Dixie has something to do with the Mason-Dixon Line—that “Dixie’s Land” was south of the line. But Dixon and Dixie may be just a coincidental resemblance. We’re simply not sure where Dixie comes from, and that, of course, makes it another example of a word that started out as slang of anonymous origin but is pretty much Standard English now.

A lot of folks think of beer bellies and dip-stained overalls when they think of the South ... but we Southerners know that's just not us!

Strong differences exist within the South. The Gulf Coast, the southern highlands, the Georgia-Carolinas Piedmont, and many portions of the northern interior South each possess their own versions of southern culture. But they are also clear about the "southern-ness" they share.

The region of southern culture - the Deep South - can be viewed as a geographic composite of beliefs, attitudes, patterns, habits, and institutions. Many of the early patterns and current changes are explicitly geographic; many others have geographic consequences.

Southern Belles

They’re not called Southern Belles for nothing. According to Webster (Noah, not Daniel) in his book (dictionary, not Bible) a belle is the most attractive or most popular female in any given situation (i.e., the belle of the ball). To carry the definition a tad further, they are 'southern belles' and nowhere in recorded history is there any mention of 'northern belles'.

You're a Southener, if ... The Halloween pumpkin on your porch has more teeth than your spouse. You let your twelve-year-old daughter smoke at the dinner table in front of her kids. You've been married three times and still have the same in-laws. You think a woman who is "out of your league" bowls on a different night. Jack Daniel's makes your list of "most admired people." You wonder how service stations keep their restrooms so clean. Anyone in your family ever died right after saying, "Hey watch this." You think Dom Perignon is a Mafia person. Your wife's hairdo was once ruined by a ceiling fan. Your junior prom had a daycare. You think the last words of the Star Spangled Banner are, "Gentlemen start your engines." You lit a match in the bathroom and your house exploded right off its wheels. The bluebook value of your truck goes up and down, depending on how much gas is in it. You have to go outside to get something from the fridge. One of your kids was born on a pool table. You need one more hole punched in your card to get a freebie at the House of Tattoos. You can't get married to your sweetheart because there's a law against it. You think loading a dishwasher means getting your wife drunk. Your toilet paper has page numbers on it. Your front porch collapses and kills more than five dogs.

Typical southern belles are cultured like a strand of pearls. They are gracious, well-mannered, soft-spoken, intelligent, brave, clean and reverent. Oops! Sorry, I got carried away. The last three are qualities of Boy Scouts. To continue, like magnolia blossoms they are beautiful to gaze upon, and men have been known to lose their hearts to them as well as their bank accounts.

Scientists have long suspected something in the water below the Mason-Dixon Line produces a southern belle. The American Medical Association once conducted exhaustive tests to identify the particular element responsible, but thus far the secret ingredient has eluded AMA scrutiny. Whatever it is, we southern gentlemen are eternally grateful for it. We recognize, however, that if it is ever identified it would not serve the human race to disburse such a powerful particle willy-nilly.

Southern belles are special, but some folks, especially those between here and Canada, are puzzled as to exactly what a proper southern belle is. I am here to shed light on that subject. Perhaps it may be easier to show what a southern belle is not. What is it that sets her apart from her northern sisters? What does she do differently?

The first thing that comes to mind is the proven fact that southern belles never perspire. On the hottest day in July they are comfortably attired in brightly colored cotton clothing, maybe wearing a hat and holding a small Oriental fan. Not a single drop of sweat is displayed. Cotillions and evening parties are a normal part of their life, and they are able to dance all evening without puddling.

A true southern belle never utters a curse word where others might hear. She may say “darn” or “bless your heart” during an occasional angry outburst, but never a strong vulgar word passes her lips. Oh, she knows such words, for she has read Faulkner and Caldwell, but she demurely turns aside thoughts of using such expressions on her own.

The most notable attribute that distinguishes a southern belle is her musical drawl. Her voice simply drips with charm to reveal her southern heritage. Also, she has a penchant for never “passing gas” in public. At least, not so it is noticeable. If a “poot” should ever accidentally escape, she will glance at everyone in her immediate vicinity and smile coyly to disavow any personal guilt she may have. Southern Belles are special.

The earliest European colonization in America was commercial and exploitative. And the coastal plain south of Delaware Bay, especially that south of Chesapeake Bay, contained many areas that appeared ideal for agricultural exploitation. The long, hot summers, regular rainfall, and mild winters permitted settlers a selection of crops complementary to those grown in northern Europe. The large number of rivers that crossed the plain, navigable by small boats at least, allowed settlement to expand freely between the James River in Virginia and the Altamaha River in Georgia.

Population densities remained low throughout most of the region, with urban concentrations larger than the village size limited to port cities (Norfolk, Virginia; Wilmington, North Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia) or the heads of navigation on the main rivers (Richmond, Virginia, and, later, Columbia, South Carolina, and Augusta, Georgia). The strong rural and agrarian elements of southern culture established a pattern that remained significant until after the mid-20th century.

The greatest return for the effort expended by Europeans in settling the Atlantic southern lowlands was through highly structured cash crop agriculture. The plantation organization came gradually to dominate the early southern colonial economy. Production of tobacco along the James River and to the south in northeastern North Carolina, and production of rice and indigo in and around the many coastal swamps in the Carolinas and Georgia, were important from 1695 onward. Cotton production grew slowly in importance until about 1800 and spread rapidly inland, from the initial concentrations on the Sea Islands between Charleston and Spanish-held Florida. Although privately held small farms were numerous, the plantation form of organization was successful enough that it was carried westward with cotton production and reached its most prevalent form in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana during the first half of the 19th century. Tobacco was similarly carried westward into Kentucky and Tennessee by settlers migrating from Virginia and North Carolina.

The South's spatial organization was weakly developed, with small market centers serving as collection and transshipment points; larger cities containing a variety of economic activities were few in number. The transportation network accompanying this pattern was one that simply allowed the inland products to be moved most directly to the coastal export centers; interconnections between the smaller marketplaces remained few. A major consequence was rural isolation for most of the region's population.

Large-scale plantation agriculture required a sizable annual investment, and much of that investment was in the form of slave labor from Africa. Once this practice was established, it restricted population immigration because potential settlers and urban workers found freer opportunities in the North. Since early in the 19th century, therefore, the South's proportion of foreign born has been lower than any other region of the country. And because significant immigration to the United States from countries outside Britain did not occur until the 1840s, the overwhelming majority of southern whites are of British descent.

Two long-term resident populations that are neither British nor African in ancestry are the Cajuns of southern Louisiana and several American Indian groups. The Catholic, French-speaking Cajuns are descended from French exiles from Canada. The rural Cajun population settled in southern Louisiana and remained culturally distinct in spite of the gradual integration of the remainder of the state into Deep South culture. Most American Indian groups were removed from the South in much the same ruthless manner and at the same time as in the Midwest, but significant exceptions remain. The largest of these are the Lumbee in southeast North Carolina, remnants of the once powerful Cherokee in southwestern North Carolina, the Choctaw in central Mississippi, and the Seminoles in southern Florida.

Jump to page:  [ 1 ]  [ 2 ]  [ 3 ]

top of page

back a page