Although the sharecropping system was primarily a post-Civil War development, it did exist in
antebellum Mississippi
, especially in the northeastern part of the state, an area with few slaves or plantations, and most likely existed in Tennessee.
Prior to the Civil War, sharecropping is known to have existed in Mississippi and is believed to have been in place in
Tennessee
. However, it was not until the economic upheaval caused by the American Civil War and the end of slavery during and after Reconstruction that it became widespread in the South.
Different types of sharecropping have been practiced worldwide for centuries, but in
the rural South
, it was typically practiced by formerly enslaved people.
Sharecropping became popular
after the Civil War’s end in 1865
when landowners no longer had slaves and there were millions of freed slaves looking for work.
Sharecropping is an agricultural system which developed in the Southern states after the Civil War. It was a farm tenancy system in which families worked a farm or section of land in return for a share of the crop rather than wages. … Sharecropping developed
because the former slaves and planters needed each other.
Sharecropping is an arrangement in which property owners allow tenants to farm a piece of land in exchange for a share of the crop. … It was a way landowners could still command labor, often by African Americans, to keep their farms profitable. It had faded in most places by the 1940s. But
not everywhere
.
Sharecropping, along with tenant farming, was a dominant form in the cotton South
from the 1870s to the 1950s
, among both blacks and whites, but it has largely disappeared. After the War, plantation owners had to borrow money to produce crops. Interest rates on these loans were around 15%.
Approximately two-thirds
of all sharecroppers were white, and one third were black.
Sharecropping kept
blacks in poverty
and in a position in which they pretty much had to do what they were told by the owner of the land they were working. This was not very good for the freed slaves in that it did not give them a chance to truly escape the way things had been during slavery.
Sharecropping developed, then, as a system that theoretically
benefited both parties
. Landowners could have access to the large labor force necessary to grow cotton, but they did not need to pay these laborers money, a major benefit in a post-war Georgia that was cash poor but land rich.
What was most likely to happen if a sharecropper did not like the contract the landowner offered?
The landowner would force the sharecropper to sign. The landowner would ask a lawyer to review it.
Sharecropping is when the owner of the land rents it to someone in exchange for part of their crop. The difference between sharecropping and slavery is
freedom
. While slaves work without pay, sharecroppers get payed with crops. Sharecroppers can also choose to quit their jobs whenever they want.
Sharecropping was a system of agriculture instituted in the American South during the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War. It essentially
replaced the plantation system which had relied
on the stolen labor of enslaved people and effectively created a new system of bondage.
What effect did the system of sharecropping have on the South after the Civil War?
It kept formerly enslaved persons economically dependent. It brought investment capital to the South. It encouraged Northerners to migrate south.
Do tenant farmers still exist?
A tenant farmer is
one who resides on land owned by a landlord
. … In most developed countries today, at least some restrictions are placed on the rights of landlords to evict tenants under normal circumstances.
freedom to achieve whatever your slave ancestors
could not O a stepping stone to owning land and beginning your own business a destitute existence where it was nearly impossible to make money a time of quiet contemplation while working with family members.
