Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History
Benson Lossing, Ed.

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Dixie,

A supposed imaginary land of luxurious enjoyment somewhere in the Southern States, and during the Civil War it became a collective designation for the slave-labor States. “Dixie” songs and “Dixie” music prevailed all over those States and in the Confederate army. It had no such significance. It is a simple refrain that originated among negro emigrants to the South from Manhattan, or New York, island about 1800. A man named Dixy owned a large tract of land on that island and many slaves. They became unprofitable, and the growth of the abolition sentiment made Dixy's slaves uncertain property. He sent quite a large number of them to Southern planters and sold them. The heavier burdens imposed upon them there, and the memories of their birthplace and its comforts on Manhattan, made them sigh for Dixy's. It became with them synonymous with an earthly paradise, and the exiles sang a simple refrain in a pathetic manner about the joys of Dixy's. Additions to it elevated it into the dignity of a song, and it was chanted by the negroes all over the South, which, in the Civil War, was called the “Land of Dixie.”