IL semble que ce soit l'explication la plus communément admise, mais il y en a d'autres:
- 'The word preserves the name of a "Mr. Dixy", a slave owner on Manhattan Island[citation needed], where slavery was legal until 1827. His rule was so kind that "Dixy's Land" became famed far and wide as an elysium abounding in material comforts.
- "Dixie" derives from Jeremiah Dixon, a surveyor of the Mason-Dixon line which defined the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania, and, for the most part, free and slave states (Delaware, a Union border state, and slave state up to the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, lay north and east of the famous survey line.)
(notice wiki)
A lire aussi ce texte qui explique comment cette appellation s'est répandue par l'intermédiaire d'une chanson populaire d'un (faux) chanteur noir:
http://www.alphadictionary.com/blog/?p=308