Sharecropping
During the Time of Reconstruction
Sharecropping
❖
Originated in the South
❖
Reason: Newly freed blacks were impoverished and
homeless and the former slave owners needed field-hands to
raise their crops.
❖
How Sharecropping began: The freed blacks would return
to their former masters plantations and asked if they would
employ him and his family. The responded that they had no
money to pay wages so they struck a deal. The black man
and his family would raise the crop on the white man’s land
and at the end of the season they would split the profit.
Where Did Sharecropping
Occur?
❖
In many former Southern Confederate states.
❖
On plantations that lost their slaves and needed cheap labor
to produce crops.
Why Was it a Scam on the
Blacks?
❖
The blacks were promised half of the profit made from the
crops, but by the time they were supposed to be paid the
white man would tell him that because of all the money he
loaned him and his family to live on was by the time it was
taken out of his share there was nothing left. So the white
man used their situation to their advantage and told them
that they can work another year to to try to pay off the
remaining debt.
❖
This got the blacks to stay on the land and raise the crops
again thinking that they would eventually make money and
profit off their hard work.
Positive Effects on Blacks
❖
Sharecropping had mainly a negative effect on the blacks,
but in some cases where the white men were respectable
they were paid their share of the crops profit and were able
to save money.
❖
Helped blacks save up money to one day buy their own land
to live on.
Effects Sharecropping Had
on Whites
❖
Positive:Whites benefitted from sharecropping because
they had people to grow their crops and make them profit.
In a way it was as if slavery was still around, because they
could deprive the black workers of pay and con them into
working for them again the next season.
❖
Negative: With the creation of sharecropping it took away
jobs that the poor white people needed. The hiring farmers
felt it was a lot cheaper to have free black men working for
them for a share of the crop in return than people they
would actually have to pay throughout the year.
Kept Blacks Inferior
❖
Sharecropping was in a way the white mans way of still
having control over the blacks.
❖
The blacks that raised the crops were watched over as
closely as they were when they were working on cotton
plantations before they were freed.
❖
By depriving them of their intended initial pay the whites
kept the blacks inferior and beneath them.
Bibliography
❖
“Reconstruction the Second Civil War.” PBS. 28 May 2009 <http://www.pbs.org/‌wgbh/‌amex/‌reconstruction/‌
sharecrop/‌sf_economy.html>.
❖
“Learn About Reconstruction.” Digital History. 29 May 2009. 29 May 2009 <http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/‌
modules/‌reconstruction/‌index.cfm>