(MC)What was the main effect of the systems of sharecropping and debt peonage put in place in the South after the Civil War?
African Americans were prevented from leaving the plantations where they had been enslaved.
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.
After the Civil War,
former slaves sought jobs, and planters sought laborers
. The absence of cash or an independent credit system led to the creation of sharecropping. … The Great Depression, mechanization, and other factors lead sharecropping to fade away in the 1940s.
Nevertheless, the sharecropping system did allow freedmen a degree of freedom and autonomy far greater than they experienced under slavery. As a symbol of their newly won independence,
freedmen had teams of mules drag their former slave cabins away from the slave quarters into their own fields
.
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 was a major result of the civil war?
The biggest result was
the end to Slavery
. The 13th Amendment called for the abolishment of Slavery, and it was in support of President Lincoln’s Emancipation proclamation. In addition, the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution were also passed by Congress and ratified by states, becoming law.
In addition, while sharecropping gave
African Americans autonomy in their daily work and social lives
, and freed them from the gang-labor system that had dominated during the slavery era, it often resulted in sharecroppers owing more to the landowner (for the use of tools and other supplies, for example) than they were …
Charges for the land, supplies, and housing were deducted from
the sharecroppers’ portion of the harvest, often leaving them with substantial debt to the landowners in bad years. … Contracts between landowners and sharecroppers were typically harsh and restrictive.
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.
How did the civil war hurt the South’s economy?
The twin disadvantages of a smaller industrial economy and having so much of the war fought in the South
hampered Confederate growth and development
. Southern farmers (including cotton growers) were hampered in their ability to sell their goods overseas due to Union naval blockades.
How did sharecropping affect Southern society?
It forced formerly enslaved people to sign contracts that were unfair
.
Sharecropping as historically practiced in the American South is
considered more economically productive than the gang system of slave plantations
, though less efficient than modern agricultural techniques.
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
.
What problem did many farmers have under the sharecropping system?
They were forced to grow cash crops instead of food
. They often were trapped in a cycle or circle of debt. Many sharecroppers were forced to buy goods on credit.
What was one long-term consequence of the sharecropping system?
Agricultural workers organized labor unions
. Many former slaves became trapped in a cycle of debt. Landowners sold property to pay wages to former slaves.
