[Ads-l] Dixie Land: a Provisional, Incomplete, Annotated Chronology

[dave at WILTON.NET]

I don't interpret the 1844 reference to the dance this way. The dance and
music being played aren't "Dixey's Land," the writer is comparing the
dancers crossing imaginary boundaries with the children playing the game of
"Dixey's Land," which the writer had written about a few months before and
was obviously familiar with. Both the 1844 references are to the game.

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of Stephen
Goranson
Sent: Thursday, July 2, 2020 8:34 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: [ADS-L] Dixie Land: a Provisional, Incomplete, Annotated Chronology

Dixie Land: a Provisional, Incomplete, Annotated Chronology

[Details are in American Dialect Society -list archive, J. Lighter's
Historical Dic. American Slang, and J. Green's Dic. Of Slang; additions and
corrections welcome.]

[Variant Dix+-spellings, some informalisms and/or (black or white) slang or
maybe kid-speech (Dickie) for Dixon, he of the exceedingly well-known Line,
and eventually, land. Searches for a kind-hearted NY D. slaveholder or a
particular D. minstrel role or individual--other than Dixon--may have been
over-rated. Old-timers who recalled such related pre-1859 games, perhaps
similar to Tag and, maybe, to Red Rover, vindicated.]

1763-7 the Mason and Dixon Line survey

1835 US South [apparently imo called] Mason and Dixon's *Land*

1844 a (fiction?) dance, with playing "Dixey's Land"; also 1844, same
author, play at Dixie's land on newly-washed pavement

1849 Mason & Dixon Line re-surveyed and largely confirmed

1852 kids in NY play games "I Spy," and "Tag," and "Dicky's land"

[1854 Dorothea Dix's Land Bill, not enacted-in 1861 belittled in NY
publication]

1855 .this game.the game cannot be played without the State.those who go to
Dixey's land must be Dixey's men

1856 boys on skates [in Buffalo] played "Dickie's Land" and "Tag"

1859 D.D. Emmett [who spent time in NY] songs Jonny Roach and Dixie's Land
make Dixie (land) famous [On Emmett see Hans Nathan, Dan Emmett and the rise
of Negro minstrelsy, second edition, 1977]

1861 H.  Hotze writes Dixie is an abbreviation for Mason and Dixon's Line
and claims he previously heard northern negroes use it as such

1861 John Bell of TN, from Dixie's Land

1861 WH Russell [160 or 60?-river vs crow-fly?)] miles north of Memphis
reports Dixie's Land is a synonym for heaven

1861 Old Game of Dixie's Land, sport, in NY, decades past, with lines,
boundaries North and South

1861 Mason and Dixon line, or on Dixon's, or Dixey's Line itself [PA
newspaper]

1863 Artemis Ward crosses Dixie's line [several newspapers]

1869 "sout' in Tixey" [see Green]

1872 Dixie's land, a recalled game NY boys played, also "Tag"

1872 Emmett, whose story changed later, claimed northern negroes said "I
wish I was in Dixie's land" when he was about to travel south


Stephen Goranson


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