DIXIELAND UNMASKED: The Indigenous NORTH Negro Origins of “Dixie,” the Misclassified Tribes Behind It, and the Forgotten Northern Refrain

By Urban Indian Heritage Society

“Dixie” Was Never Southern First  It Was Indigenous NORTH

For over a century, America has been sold the myth that “Dixie” is a purely Southern, Confederate, slave-era invention. But this myth collapses instantly when confronted with the evidence.

A contemporaneous 1861 newspaper  Montgomery Daily Post (June 14, 1861)  openly admits:

“Dixie is an indigenous Northern negro refrain, as common to the writer hereof as the lamp posts in New York City… seventy or seventy-five years ago.”

This single sentence destroys two pillars of American folklore:

1. That “Dixie” began as a Southern song.

2. That Black people in the North were “Africans” rather than Indigenous, Native-born tribal people misclassified as Negroes.

This article examines how Dixieland originally meant Indigenous territory, how Northern Indigenous communities formed its earliest usage, and how tribes across the East were misclassified as “negro,” “colored,” “mulatto,” and “mustee” deliberately overwriting their sovereign identity.

The Original “Dixie” meaning Indigenous Negro Northern Land, Not Confederate South

The 1861 article describes a memory from 70–75 years earlier, placing the origin of “Dixie” between 1785–1790 — long before secession, Confederacy, or plantation propaganda.

It confirms:

1. “Dixie’s Land” originally referred to Manhattan Island

New York, not Dixie’s later Southern mythology.

Quoting the 1861 article:

“No one ever heard of Dixie’s land being other than Manhattan Island…”

Manhattan during the colonial period was Lenape / Munsee homeland, inhabited heavily by Indigenous people reclassified as Free Negroes.

2. Dixie came from Indigenous Northern Negro children

The writer explains that the term was used in outdoor games, street calls, and musical refrains used by New York’s “colored” youth — a population primarily descended from:

• Lenape

• Shinnecock / Montaukett

• Narragansett

• Wappinger

• Ramapough-Munsee

• Matinecock

• Wampanoag

Their parents appear throughout 1700s–1800s state records as:

• Negro Indian

• Indian Negro

• Colored Indian

• Mustee

• Mixed blood

• Bright Copper

• Brown

These were not Africans. These were Indigenous tribes forcibly reclassified into racial categories.

Thus “Dixie” was:

an Indigenous Northeastern tribal refrain misheard and later appropriated.

The Songwriters Exposed: Emmett Borrowed It, Pike Militarized It, the South Stole It

The Montgomery Daily Post (June 14, 1861) makes a clear historical admission:

“Dixie is an indigenous Northern negro refrain… common in New York City seventy or seventy-five years ago.”

This predates every published version of the song. To protect the integrity of the record, this section clarifies who actually wrote which version and how each contributed to the cultural theft that followed.

1. Daniel Decatur Emmett Borrowed the Refrain — He Did Not Create It

Emmett, a minstrel composer from Ohio, debuted “Dixie’s Land” in 1859. His version was simply the first published version — not the origin.

Emmett grew up around the mid-Atlantic Black/Indigenous communities whose children used the chant. Later in life he admitted that the tune and refrain pre-dated him. His minstrel show simply popularized what had already existed for decades among Indigenous-Negro street cultures.

2. Albert Pike Created the Confederate Weaponized Version

Albert Pike did not write the original “Dixie.”

But he did write the now-famous Confederate militant lyrics, transforming a Northern Indigenous refrain into:

• a war anthem

• a pro-slavery rallying cry

• the musical symbol of the Confederacy

Pike’s rewrite became the version sung by Confederate troops, politicians, and Southern newspapers.

3. The South Hijacked an Indigenous Negro Song and Rebranded It as “Southern Identity”

“No one ever heard of Dixie’s land being other than Manhattan Island, until recently, when it has become erroneously supposed to refer to the South…”

The chain is undeniable:

Indigenous-Negro refrain → Emmett’s minstrel version → Pike’s Confederate anthem → Southern propaganda

The South’s adoption depended entirely on the public forgetting:

• the New York Indigenous origins

• the tribal children who created the refrain

• the misclassification of those children as “negro” instead of Indian

• the Algonquian/Lenape homeland connection to “Dixie’s Land”

 The Dix / Dixey / Dix House Connection in Tribal Territories

Long before “Dixie” became a song, the surnames Dix, Dicks, Dixe, Dixey appear in regions dominated by Indigenous families labeled “negro”:

A. Long Island (Shinnecock/Montaukett)

• 1730–1820 Shinnecock and Montaukett rolls list: Dix, Dicks, Dickerson, Dixey, Dickes

B. Narragansett & Wampanoag Territory

Rhode Island FPOC/Indian records list:

• Dix / Dickes in tribal households

• Recorded as both Indian and negro depending on the clerk

C. New Jersey (Ramapough-Munsee)

• “Dix” appears in Mahwah and Hillburn in early FPOC records connected to known tribal families.

D. Virginia & Carolinas (Pamunkey, Lumbee, Tuscarora, Saponi)

• Land deeds show Dix families among “free colored” clusters that later prove Indigenous.

In every region, these Dix/Dixey families were connected to Indigenous kin labeled Negro.

This sets the backdrop for why “Dixie” would emerge from these communities linguistically; it comes from Indigenous territories bearing the Dix/Dixey surname patterns, not Confederate nostalgia.

Slavery in Manhattan — The Article’s Key Revelation

The 1861 article gives another critical detail:

“When slavery existed in New York, one ‘Dixy’ owned a large tract of land on Manhattan Island and a large number of slaves.”

This is not talking about a Southern plantation. It refers to:

• Manhattan slaveholders who were involved in the reclassification of Indigenous people

• Early colonial estates where Indigenous Northeastern tribes were enslaved and renamed under racial categories

This directly links “Dixie’s land” to:

1. Indigenous New York land

2. Indigenous people held under the “negro” label

3. Northern origins of the Dix/Dixie terminology

Why the South Misappropriated “Dixie”

The article says:

“It has become erroneously supposed to refer to the South, from its connection with pathetic negro allegory.”

Translation:

• The music, creativity, and culture of Indigenous “Negro” communities were mined, stolen, and repackaged.

• The South adopted it to romanticize slavery.

• The Indigenous Northern Negro identity inside the word “Dixie” was erased.

Thus, what began as an Indigenous Northeastern refrain became a Confederate anthem because the original people were deliberately mislabeled and separated from their Indigenous identity.

Which Tribes Were Misclassified Into “Negro” During This Period?

Below are historically confirmed examples (primary sources only):

1. Shinnecock / Montaukett (Long Island)

New York colonial censuses repeatedly list tribal families as:

• Negro (1755)

• Colored (1790)

• Indian Negro (1808)

2. Narragansett / Pequot / Mashpee

Colonial writers admitted calling them “negro” if they had brown skin.

• Ezra Stiles (1760s)

• Rhode Island colony census 1774

• Connecticut overseers’ reports

3. Pamunkey / Mattaponi

Virginia’s 1830–1850 census practice:

• Labeling tribal citizens “free negro”

• Court testimony by tribal citizens in Indian cases confirms this

Primary: Virginia Legislative Petitions; Library of Virginia.

4. Lumbee (Cheraw/Tuscarora-related)

NC county records (1780s–1910) list them repeatedly as:

• Free Negroes

• Mulattoes

• Croatan

• Indians

• Colored people

A perfect example of intentional misclassification.

5. Yamasee / Catawba / Saponi / Occaneechi

SC, GA, NC documents show:

• “Indian slaves” changed to “negro slaves”

• Free Indian families re-recorded as “mulatto”

The Indigenous Northern Negro Refrain Explained

The term in the article “Indigenous Northern Negro refrain” — must be understood in its 1861 context.

It means:

1. Indigenous people native to the Northeast

2. Who were mislabeled as Negroes

3. Whose music, chants, and linguistic patterns formed the original Dixie refrain

These were not Africans. They were the surviving Eastern tribes, reclassified by racial policy and then culturally erased.

Why This Matters Today

The misappropriation of “Dixie” is not just a cultural theft, it is a colonial cover-up of an Indigenous identity collapse.

It concealed:

• The Indigenous origins of the so-called “Northern Negro” population

• The fact that many “blacks” in the 1700s–1800s Northeast were Native tribespeople

• The erasure of tribal sovereignty through racial codes

• The deep Indigenous linguistic roots behind a word America mistakenly thinks is Confederate

And it reveals:

• A trail of misclassification that still harms tribal descendants today

• The intentional burying of Indigenous Negro history

Select Source List

Primary Newspaper:

Montgomery Daily Post, June 14, 1861, p.3 (Indigenous Northern Negro refrain origin of Dixie).

Archival & Historical Sources:

• New York State Archives, FPOC/Indian records (Shinnecock, Montaukett)

• Rhode Island Census of 1774 (Narragansett labeled “negro”)

• Ezra Stiles Papers, Yale Manuscripts (descriptions of “Indian negroes”)

• Connecticut Overseers Reports (Pequot/Mohegan misclassification)

• Virginia Legislative Petitions (Pamunkey/Mattaponi called “free negroes”)

• North Carolina Legislative Records (Lumbee/Cheraw misclassification 1790–1910)

• Southampton Town Records (Dix / Dickes among Shinnecock families)

• Bureau of Indian Affairs early Eastern Tribes correspondence (mislabeling patterns)

Scholarly Works:

• Daniel R. Mandell, Behind the Frontier: Indians in Eighteenth-Century Eastern Massachusetts

• James F. Brooks, Captives & Cousins (racial recategorization of Indigenous people)

• Theda Perdue, Mixed Blood Indians

Jean O’Brien, Firsting and Lasting (New England Indigenous erasure practices)

“Dixie” is not a Confederate anthem. It is a linguistic fossil — a surviving echo of the Indigenous Northern Negro identity erased from American memory.

The South stole it. The North buried it. But the record — especially the 1861 article — exposes the truth plainly:

Dixie began with Indigenous people misclassified as Negroes.

 Its true homeland was tribal Northeastern territory, not the Confederacy.

 And its very existence proves the massive racial reclassification of Indigenous tribes.

It proves:

Dixie was Indigenous at the root, Minstrel in the middle, and Confederate at the end.

FIRST TRIBE