Sharecropping, form of
tenant farming
in which the landowner furnished all the capital and most other inputs and the tenants contributed their labour. Depending on the arrangement, the landowner may have provided the food, clothing, and medical expenses of the tenants and may have also supervised the work.
Land was not, however, the only thing sharecroppers needed from the owners. The owners of the state’s largest plantations would also sell
fertilizer, seed, clothing, shoes
, and some food from the plantation store. Croppers working smaller operations often bought these necessities from local furnishing merchants.
Under a sharecropping system, the
landowner provided a share of land to be worked by the sharecropper
, and usually provided other necessities such as housing, tools, seed, or working animals. Local merchants usually provided food and other supplies to the sharecropper on credit.
The advantages of sharecropping was
that it was available to women
. In that case a woman could take part in sharecropping. Another advantage is that it helped slaves gain homes and a new life after Emancipation. An economical advantage was that it helped the US escape inflation.
Sharecropping was widespread in the South during Reconstruction, after the Civil War. 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 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.
Approximately two-thirds of
all sharecroppers were white, and one third were black.
Explanation:
The land owner
got 50% of the profits without effort or risk. The people sharecropping ( usually freed slaves and a few poor whites) did all of the work.
A sharecropper is
someone who would farm land that belonged to a landowner
. … Following the Civil War, plantation owners were unable to farm their land. They did not have slaves or money to pay a free labor force, so sharecropping developed as a system that could benefit plantation owners and former slaves.
The
requirement of little or no up-front cash for land purchase
provided the major advantage for farmers in the sharecropping arrangement. The lack of the initial up-front payment, however, also created disadvantages for the landowner who waited for payment until crops were harvested and then sold.
Sharecropping is when anyone lives and/or works on land that is not theirs and in return for their effort they pay no bills. Sharecroppers could decide they didn’t want to do it any more and leave, slaves couldn’t. … The difference between the two is freedom,
sharecroppers where free people, slaves were not
.
Sharecropping was bad
because it increased the amount of debt that poor people owed the plantation owners. Sharecropping was similar to slavery because after a while, the sharecroppers owed so much money to the plantation owners they had to give them all of the money they made from cotton.
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.
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.
Mississippi was among the last Southern states to integrate the schools and allow blacks to vote. Mechanization and migration put an end to the sharecropping system by the 1960s, though
some forms of tenant farming still exist in the 21st century
.
In tenant farming,
tenants live in the same land and engage in agricultural practices for a given period
, and finally get their payments as money, fixed amount of crop, or in combination. In the case of sharecropping, tenant receives his portion as a share. He has to give a share to the landowner, which is pre decided.
