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Little Dixie (Missouri)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- See also: Little Dixie (Oklahoma)
The Little Dixie is a 17 county region of Missouri found predominately along the Missouri River, where Missouri’s cultural traditions mirrored those of the upper South. Southerners, primarily from the hemp and tobacco districts of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee, resettled in Little Dixie and transplanted their social, agricultural, political and architectural practices; they also brought enslaved Africans and their descendants, from whom they extracted forced labor and thus accumulated wealth. While on average Missouri’s slave population was only 10 percent, in Little Dixie county and township slave populations ranged between 20 and 50 percent, corresponding to the concentration of large plantations along the river.
By the outbreak of the Civil War, counties such as Saline and Lafayette had slave populations between 30 and 40 percent and the major cash crop was hemp. In Lafayette County, locals went so far as to declare hemp as king and dedicating all production to it while forgoing necessary food production. Other Little Dixie Counties, such as Platte, Howard, Chariton, and Ralls, grew large quantities of tobacco in the millions of pounds on great plantations with 20 or more slaves. Some farmers and planters even grew cotton and sent their surplus down the Missouri River to St. Louis and New Orleans. Planters gave their large estates names such as Greenwood, Redstone, Oakwood, and Sylvan Villa in Howard County. In many parts of Little Dixie, the plantations still stand today. Often on these large farms slave populations ranged between 15 and 70 slaves with areas of 500 acres (2 km²) to 2000 acres (8 km²), or even more. The “heart” of the Little Dixie is traditionally accepted as Callaway, Boone, Howard, Audrain, Ralls, Randolph, and Monroe, and Chariton Counties. In Callaway County, just over the Boone County line lies the conservation area and lake known as Little Dixie Lake and Conservation.
The ballad of Little Dixie:
It's the heart of Missouri, blooded of three,
Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
It's a tall spare man on a blue-grass hoss.
It's sugar-cured ham without raisin sauce.
It's coon dog, coon, persimmon tree.
It's son or brother named Robert E. Lee.
It's tiger stalking a jay-hawk bird.
It's the best hog-calling that ever you heard.
It's fiddler fiddlin' you out of your seat,
Fiddler fiddlin' you off your feet.
It's bluebird singing in a hawthorn thicket.
It's vote to a man the Democratic ticket.
It's crisp brown cracklin's and hot corn pone.
It's catfish fried clean off the bone.
It's hominy grits and none of your scrapple.
It's mellow pawpaws and the Jonathan apple.
It's sorghum sweetenin' and belly-warming corn.
It's old Jeff Davis a-blowin' on his horn.
Unreconstructed it rares and bites
At touch of a rein that would curb its rights.
It's come in, stranger, draw up a chair;
There ain't no hurry and we'll all get there.
"Little Dixie" was also the name of a former Missouri athletic conference. The Little Dixie Conference, or LDC, was made up of the following area high schools:
- South Callaway HS (Mokane)
- Southern Boone HS (Ashland)
- Harrisburg HS
- Hallsville HS
- Community R-VI HS (Laddonia)
- Sturgeon HS
The Little Dixie Conference disbanded prior to the 2006 fall sports season. All schools (except Community and Sturgeon) formed the new Mid-Missouri Conference along with North Callaway and Tipton high schools.
- Missouri Division - Sons of Confederate Veterans
- The Story of Little Dixie, Missouri
- Map of Little Dixie, Missouri
