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Little Dixie (Missouri)

January 23, 2023

See also: Little Dixie (Oklahoma)

Little Dixie is a historic 13- to 17-county region along the Missouri River in central Missouri, United States. Its early Anglo-American settlers were largely migrants from the hemp and tobacco districts of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. They brought enslaved African Americans with them or purchased them as workers in the region. Because Southerners settled there first, the pre-Civil War culture of the region was similar to that of the Upper South. The area was also known as Boonslick country.[1]

The region of Little Dixie. Due to its vague boundaries, counties are colored according to whether they are always, generally, or occasionally included in the region, darkest to lightest.

A 1948 article in the Missouri Historical Review defined the antebellum "Little Dixie" region as a 13-county area between the Mississippi River north of Saint Louis to Missouri River counties in the central part of the state (Audrain, Boone, Callaway, Chariton, Howard, Lincoln, Pike, Marion, Monroe, Ralls, Randolph, Saline, and Shelby counties).[2]

When the Southerners migrated to Missouri, they brought their cultural, social, agricultural, architectural, political and economic practices, including slavery. Overall, Missouri's slave population represented 10 percent of the state's population in the 1860 U.S. Census. But in Little Dixie, county and township slave populations ranged from 20 to 50 percent by 1860, with the highest percentages for the counties developed for large plantations along the Missouri river. New Madrid County, along the Mississippi River south of St. Louis, also had a high percentage of African slaves, but was not considered part of the region.

Definition

 
Percentage of slaves by county in the slave states in 1860. Little Dixie's isolation from the core slaveholding regions of the South is apparent.

While definitions of the counties included in Little Dixie vary, in 1860 seven counties were developed primarily for plantations, and their populations consisted of 25 percent or more enslaved African Americans:

The only other county of the state where the enslaved population was as high in 1860 was New Madrid in the Bootheel, a region in the southern part of the state along the Mississippi River that was devoted to cotton plantations.[3]

The Missouri Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans defines the "heart" of Little Dixie as having consisted of the following counties:[4]

The major cash crop was hemp.[citation needed][when?]In Lafayette County, locals declared hemp as king and dedicated all agricultural production to it, while foregoing necessary food production. In addition, planters in "Outer Little Dixie" counties, such as Platte, Howard, Chariton and Ralls,[4] grew millions of pounds of tobacco on large plantations with 20 or more slaves. Some farmers and planters grew cotton and sent their surplus down the Missouri River to St. Louis, and down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Cotton was exported to Britain, or shipped north to textile mills in New York and New England.

In Howard County, developed along the river for plantations, planters named their large estates in the Southern style, such as Greenwood, Redstone, Oakwood and Sylvan Villa. On these plantations, slave populations ranged between 15 and 70 people; they cultivated acreage of 500 acres (2 km²) to 2000 acres (8 km²), or more.

Postwar history

After the Civil War, the slaves were emancipated. The Reconstruction-era legislature established free public education for all citizens for the first time. While whites insisted that schools be segregated, the legislature required that all townships with 20 or more black children of student age had to establish schools. By 1870, of the former slave states, Missouri had the "largest proportion of schools for negro children."[5] Black communities rapidly established independent churches and schools to express their own culture and create a sphere outside white supervision.

In Little Dixie in the early 20th century, of the counties with the largest black populations,

Callaway County at one time had twenty-eight African American schools; Boone, eighteen; Howard, sixteen; Cooper, twenty-six; Chariton, fourteen; Lafayette, twenty; Saline, eighteen. Although the number of schools decreased as rural black communities dissolved with the onslaught of the Depression and the economic opportunity of the New Deal, in 1933 these same counties still had the highest number of black schools outside of St. Louis and the Bootheel.[6]

In keeping with competition and fears among whites, they exercised a higher frequency of mob violence against blacks and lynchings of African Americans in this region than in other parts of the state. The pattern appears to be strongly associated with the history of slavery, the rural economy after the war, and white efforts to establish dominance in resulting race relations. In the late 19th-century white Democrats throughout the South sought to reimpose and maintain white supremacy. Between 1889 and 1919, a period that is considered the "nadir of racial relations" in the United States, Southern states disenfranchised most blacks through new constitutions and amendments. Lynchings of black men were numerous in the South in this period.

In 1890 in the traditional seven counties of Little Dixie, the black population totaled 45,000. It increased into the early 20th century.[7] In the "nadir" period, there were 13 lynchings of black men in total in Boone, Howard, Monroe, Pike, and Randolph counties. This number represented 16 percent of the total lynchings in the state during this period, whereas these seven counties contained less than 6 percent of the state's total population. African Americans comprised slightly more than 50 percent of the victims of lynching in other parts of Missouri. In these seven counties, more than 90 percent of lynch victims were black, and they were overwhelmingly men.[8][9][10]

Mechanization of farms decreased the need for farm labor beginning in the early 20th century. African Americans left the region in the Great Migration for northern and midwestern industrial cities, including St. Louis. They also sought to escape the violence and social oppression. The United States Supreme Court ruling of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) declared segregated public schools to be unconstitutional, but integration of schools was slow in many areas of the South and Missouri. After integration, some former black schools were closed and adapted for new uses; others were in too poor condition to be used.

The Little Dixie Conference, an athletic conference for high schools in Callaway and Boone counties, operated from 1952[11] to 2006.[citation needed]

In many parts of Little Dixie, some antebellum plantation homes still stand today. Many people participate in heritage tourism and historic projects to preserve these structures and other aspects of this era.

Other aspects of the region's complex history, including after the Civil War, are also being studied and preserved. Beginning in 1998, the State Historic Preservation Office (of the Department of Natural Resources), conducted a survey to identify the remaining historic African-American schools in the 15 counties of Little Dixie; this survey was extended throughout the state and lasted until 2002.[12] The study documented the historic structures, identifying those that were unique architecturally. It also captured the stories of people associated with them. The team conducted many oral interviews with former students, teachers, administrators and members of the communities to learn about their communities during the Jim Crow era.[13] Because many of the former rural schools consisted of just one room, they have been adapted for a wide variety of uses. Many have survived. In addition, schools were often started in black churches or chapels, many of which still stand.[14] As a result of the study, the state recommended numerous African-American schools for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.

Continuing demographic changes throughout the 20th century have resulted in a decrease in the number and proportion of African Americans in most of the seven counties of Little Dixie. Only Boone County in 2010 had an increase in African-American population since 2000. Blacks made up 9.29 percent of the population.[15] In each of the other six counties, African Americans made up 6 percent or less of total population. In each case, the number and proportion of blacks in the population had declined since 2000.[16]

References

  1. ^ Marshall, Howard Wight (1981). Folk Architecture in Little Dixie: A Regional Culture in Missouri. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press.
  2. ^ "Little Dixie". Missouri Historical Review. 42 (2). 1948. Retrieved 25 April 2020. Issue has map of region on cover
  3. ^ T. J. Stiles, Jesse James: The Last Rebel of the Civil War, New York: Vintage Books, 2003, pp.10-11
  4. ^ a b "Little Dixie, Missouri" 2012-07-17 at the Wayback Machine, Missouri Division - Sons of Confederate Veterans], accessed 3 Jun 2008
  5. ^ Robert Brigham, The Education of the Negro in Missouri, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Missouri- Columbia, 1946, p. 125
  6. ^ Rural and Small Town Schools in Missouri, Dept. of Natural Resources, State Historic Preservation Office, n.d. c.2003, p. 10, accessed 15 March 2015
  7. ^ Rural and Small Town Schools in Missouri (2003), p. 10
  8. ^ NAACP (1919). Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889—1918. NAACP. pp. 80–81.
  9. ^ U.S. Census Bureau (1922). Fourteenth Census, vol. 3, Population, 1920: Composition and Characteristics of the Population by States. Government Printing Office. p. 546.
  10. ^ U.S. Census Bureau (1922). Fourteenth Census, vol. 2, Population, 1920: General Report and Analytical Tables. Government Printing Office. p. 1348.
  11. ^ "History". arrowfootball.tripod.com. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
  12. ^ Rural and Small Town Schools in Missouri (2003), p.
  13. ^ Rural and Small Town Schools in Missouri, (2002), p. 8
  14. ^ Rural and Small Town Schools in Missouri, (2002), pp. 11-13
  15. ^ "Missouri: Boone County, Census 2010 and 2000", Census Viewer, accessed 15 March 2015
  16. ^ "Population of Missouri: Census 2010 and 2000...", Census Viewer, accessed 15 March 2015

Further reading

  • Robert M. Crisler, "Missouri's Little Dixie," Missouri Historical Review (Columbia, MO), Volume XLII [April 1948], pp. 130 - 139
  • Roy E. Coy, editor. Little Dixie and the Mystic Land of Poosey, St. Joseph, MO: St. Joseph Museum, 1954
  • R. Douglas Hurt, Agriculture and Slavery in Missouri's Little Dixie, Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1993
  • Albert Edmund Trombly. Little Dixie, Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Studies, 1955.
  • Paul I. Wellman, "Missouri's Little Dixie is Real Although it Appears on No Maps," Kansas City Times, 5 December 1941.
  • Howard W. Marshall, Folk Architecture in Little Dixie: A Regional Culture in Missouri, Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1981

External links

  • Jack Blanton (1869-1955), "The Truth about Little Dixie", n.d., c. 1940s, reprinted from Mexico Ledger, in Monroe County Quarterly, Vol. 4, Issue 1, Spring 2007; hosted at Rootsweb
  • "Map of Little Dixie, Missouri", Missouri Division - Sons of Confederate Veterans Website
  • Missouri's Little Dixie, Official Website

Coordinates: 39°N 93°W / 39°N 93°W / 39; -93

January 23, 2023
little, dixie, missouri, also, little, dixie, oklahoma, little, dixie, historic, county, region, along, missouri, river, central, missouri, united, states, early, anglo, american, settlers, were, largely, migrants, from, hemp, tobacco, districts, virginia, ken. See also Little Dixie Oklahoma Little Dixie is a historic 13 to 17 county region along the Missouri River in central Missouri United States Its early Anglo American settlers were largely migrants from the hemp and tobacco districts of Virginia Kentucky and Tennessee They brought enslaved African Americans with them or purchased them as workers in the region Because Southerners settled there first the pre Civil War culture of the region was similar to that of the Upper South The area was also known as Boonslick country 1 The region of Little Dixie Due to its vague boundaries counties are colored according to whether they are always generally or occasionally included in the region darkest to lightest A 1948 article in the Missouri Historical Review defined the antebellum Little Dixie region as a 13 county area between the Mississippi River north of Saint Louis to Missouri River counties in the central part of the state Audrain Boone Callaway Chariton Howard Lincoln Pike Marion Monroe Ralls Randolph Saline and Shelby counties 2 When the Southerners migrated to Missouri they brought their cultural social agricultural architectural political and economic practices including slavery Overall Missouri s slave population represented 10 percent of the state s population in the 1860 U S Census But in Little Dixie county and township slave populations ranged from 20 to 50 percent by 1860 with the highest percentages for the counties developed for large plantations along the Missouri river New Madrid County along the Mississippi River south of St Louis also had a high percentage of African slaves but was not considered part of the region Contents 1 Definition 2 Postwar history 3 References 4 Further reading 5 External linksDefinition Edit Percentage of slaves by county in the slave states in 1860 Little Dixie s isolation from the core slaveholding regions of the South is apparent While definitions of the counties included in Little Dixie vary in 1860 seven counties were developed primarily for plantations and their populations consisted of 25 percent or more enslaved African Americans Callaway Boone Howard County Saline County Chariton County Lafayette County Clay County The only other county of the state where the enslaved population was as high in 1860 was New Madrid in the Bootheel a region in the southern part of the state along the Mississippi River that was devoted to cotton plantations 3 The Missouri Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans defines the heart of Little Dixie as having consisted of the following counties 4 Audrain Boone Callaway Howard Monroe RandolphThe major cash crop was hemp citation needed when In Lafayette County locals declared hemp as king and dedicated all agricultural production to it while foregoing necessary food production In addition planters in Outer Little Dixie counties such as Platte Howard Chariton and Ralls 4 grew millions of pounds of tobacco on large plantations with 20 or more slaves Some farmers and planters grew cotton and sent their surplus down the Missouri River to St Louis and down the Mississippi to New Orleans Cotton was exported to Britain or shipped north to textile mills in New York and New England In Howard County developed along the river for plantations planters named their large estates in the Southern style such as Greenwood Redstone Oakwood and Sylvan Villa On these plantations slave populations ranged between 15 and 70 people they cultivated acreage of 500 acres 2 km to 2000 acres 8 km or more Postwar history EditAfter the Civil War the slaves were emancipated The Reconstruction era legislature established free public education for all citizens for the first time While whites insisted that schools be segregated the legislature required that all townships with 20 or more black children of student age had to establish schools By 1870 of the former slave states Missouri had the largest proportion of schools for negro children 5 Black communities rapidly established independent churches and schools to express their own culture and create a sphere outside white supervision In Little Dixie in the early 20th century of the counties with the largest black populations Callaway County at one time had twenty eight African American schools Boone eighteen Howard sixteen Cooper twenty six Chariton fourteen Lafayette twenty Saline eighteen Although the number of schools decreased as rural black communities dissolved with the onslaught of the Depression and the economic opportunity of the New Deal in 1933 these same counties still had the highest number of black schools outside of St Louis and the Bootheel 6 In keeping with competition and fears among whites they exercised a higher frequency of mob violence against blacks and lynchings of African Americans in this region than in other parts of the state The pattern appears to be strongly associated with the history of slavery the rural economy after the war and white efforts to establish dominance in resulting race relations In the late 19th century white Democrats throughout the South sought to reimpose and maintain white supremacy Between 1889 and 1919 a period that is considered the nadir of racial relations in the United States Southern states disenfranchised most blacks through new constitutions and amendments Lynchings of black men were numerous in the South in this period In 1890 in the traditional seven counties of Little Dixie the black population totaled 45 000 It increased into the early 20th century 7 In the nadir period there were 13 lynchings of black men in total in Boone Howard Monroe Pike and Randolph counties This number represented 16 percent of the total lynchings in the state during this period whereas these seven counties contained less than 6 percent of the state s total population African Americans comprised slightly more than 50 percent of the victims of lynching in other parts of Missouri In these seven counties more than 90 percent of lynch victims were black and they were overwhelmingly men 8 9 10 Mechanization of farms decreased the need for farm labor beginning in the early 20th century African Americans left the region in the Great Migration for northern and midwestern industrial cities including St Louis They also sought to escape the violence and social oppression The United States Supreme Court ruling of Brown v Board of Education 1954 declared segregated public schools to be unconstitutional but integration of schools was slow in many areas of the South and Missouri After integration some former black schools were closed and adapted for new uses others were in too poor condition to be used The Little Dixie Conference an athletic conference for high schools in Callaway and Boone counties operated from 1952 11 to 2006 citation needed In many parts of Little Dixie some antebellum plantation homes still stand today Many people participate in heritage tourism and historic projects to preserve these structures and other aspects of this era Other aspects of the region s complex history including after the Civil War are also being studied and preserved Beginning in 1998 the State Historic Preservation Office of the Department of Natural Resources conducted a survey to identify the remaining historic African American schools in the 15 counties of Little Dixie this survey was extended throughout the state and lasted until 2002 12 The study documented the historic structures identifying those that were unique architecturally It also captured the stories of people associated with them The team conducted many oral interviews with former students teachers administrators and members of the communities to learn about their communities during the Jim Crow era 13 Because many of the former rural schools consisted of just one room they have been adapted for a wide variety of uses Many have survived In addition schools were often started in black churches or chapels many of which still stand 14 As a result of the study the state recommended numerous African American schools for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places Continuing demographic changes throughout the 20th century have resulted in a decrease in the number and proportion of African Americans in most of the seven counties of Little Dixie Only Boone County in 2010 had an increase in African American population since 2000 Blacks made up 9 29 percent of the population 15 In each of the other six counties African Americans made up 6 percent or less of total population In each case the number and proportion of blacks in the population had declined since 2000 16 References Edit Marshall Howard Wight 1981 Folk Architecture in Little Dixie A Regional Culture in Missouri Columbia MO University of Missouri Press Little Dixie Missouri Historical Review 42 2 1948 Retrieved 25 April 2020 Issue has map of region on cover T J Stiles Jesse James The Last Rebel of the Civil War New York Vintage Books 2003 pp 10 11 a b Little Dixie Missouri Archived 2012 07 17 at the Wayback Machine Missouri Division Sons of Confederate Veterans accessed 3 Jun 2008 Robert Brigham The Education of the Negro in Missouri Ph D dissertation University of Missouri Columbia 1946 p 125 Rural and Small Town Schools in Missouri Dept of Natural Resources State Historic Preservation Office n d c 2003 p 10 accessed 15 March 2015 Rural and Small Town Schools in Missouri 2003 p 10 NAACP 1919 Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States 1889 1918 NAACP pp 80 81 U S Census Bureau 1922 Fourteenth Census vol 3 Population 1920 Composition and Characteristics of the Population by States Government Printing Office p 546 U S Census Bureau 1922 Fourteenth Census vol 2 Population 1920 General Report and Analytical Tables Government Printing Office p 1348 History arrowfootball tripod com Retrieved 2021 02 02 Rural and Small Town Schools in Missouri 2003 p Rural and Small Town Schools in Missouri 2002 p 8 Rural and Small Town Schools in Missouri 2002 pp 11 13 Missouri Boone County Census 2010 and 2000 Census Viewer accessed 15 March 2015 Population of Missouri Census 2010 and 2000 Census Viewer accessed 15 March 2015Further reading EditRobert M Crisler Missouri s Little Dixie Missouri Historical Review Columbia MO Volume XLII April 1948 pp 130 139 Roy E Coy editor Little Dixie and the Mystic Land of Poosey St Joseph MO St Joseph Museum 1954 R Douglas Hurt Agriculture and Slavery in Missouri s Little Dixie Columbia MO University of Missouri Press 1993 Albert Edmund Trombly Little Dixie Columbia MO University of Missouri Studies 1955 Paul I Wellman Missouri s Little Dixie is Real Although it Appears on No Maps Kansas City Times 5 December 1941 Howard W Marshall Folk Architecture in Little Dixie A Regional Culture in Missouri Columbia MO University of Missouri Press 1981External links EditJack Blanton 1869 1955 The Truth about Little Dixie n d c 1940s reprinted from Mexico Ledger in Monroe County Quarterly Vol 4 Issue 1 Spring 2007 hosted at Rootsweb Map of Little Dixie Missouri Missouri Division Sons of Confederate Veterans Website Missouri s Little Dixie Official Website Coordinates 39 N 93 W 39 N 93 W 39 93 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Little Dixie Missouri amp oldid 1127035131, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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