Details of the Sharecropping System
Sharecropping
Women and Family Sharecropping
- During slavery, within the cabins, there was gender equality between black men and women.
- With sharecropping, gender relations changed with the empowering of the black male to create a patriarchal family model.
Details
- Landowners divided plantations into 20- to 50-acre plots suitable for farming by a single family. In exchange for land, a cabin, and supplies, sharecroppers agreed to raise a cash crop (usually cotton) and to give half the crop to their landlord.
- Sharecropping agreements typically favored the landowner. In many cases, at the end of a planting season, a worker might be paid only one-third of the crop that he or she produced.
Sharecropper Life
- Sharecroppers rarely owned anything, much was borrowed which led to being in constant debt.
- Although, free sharecroppers lacked control on what crops were being planted or how they were sold.
Background
- Sharecropping evolved following the failure of both the contract labor system and land reform after the Civil War (1861-65).
- The contract labor system, administered by the Freedman's Bureau, was designed to negotiate labor deals between white landowners and former slaves, many of whom resented the system and refused to participate.
End of Sharecropping
Background
Pictures
- Sharecropping eventually ended by mechanization and the Great Migration.
- Sharecropping and tenant farming began to fade in the 1930s when Congress passed laws to help farmers acquire their own land. Congress also worked to improve conditions for sharecroppers and tenant farmers.
- There were many reasons why these individuals were leaving the south.
Introduction
- Sharecropping was a way to trap former slaves and which caused them to be in debt.
- Sharecropping was essentially a compromise.
- Sharecropping vs. Tenant Farming
Sources
Background
http://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/sharecropping/
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/reconstruction/timeline-terms/sharecroppers
http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/sharecropping.html#.WNnGhyMrLL8
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/sharecropping#print
https://notevenpast.org/freedmens-bureau-work-after-emancipation/
http://study.com/academy/lesson/sharecroppers-definition-history-lesson.html
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-newsouth/4698
http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/uhic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?zid=de00f766cfb0b9313f5771bdcb26fa2d&action=2&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CCX3048900548&userGroupName=mlin_m_fadayms&jsid=65f6acb4944bf70d42db0e37bc6f0087
- Sharecropping began after the civil war, during reconstruction, when slaves needed jobs and plantation owners needed laborers for their crops.
- Sharecropping is a system where the landlord/planter allows a tenant to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop.
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