sharecropped
Worked landlord's fields
Sharecropped is the past tense of sharecrop, meaning to farm land owned by someone else in exchange for a share of the harvest.
The system dominated the American South after the Civil War, often trapping Black farmers in cycles of debt to white landowners: His grandparents sharecropped cotton in Mississippi.
Equal portions of whole
- landlordProperty owner renting out
- tenant farmerOne who leases farmland
- landownerOne possessing real estate
- settlementResolved dispute or colony
furnish · cropland · acreage · leasehold · rent · cropper · oral contract · rental agreement
Gathering fiber from plants
- tobacco cultivationGrowing plants for cigarettes
- fieldworkResearch conducted on location
- plantingPlacing seeds in earth
- harvestGathering mature crops
plowing · hoeing · sowing · cultivation · manual labor · seasonal work · backbreaking · weeding
Post-1865 national reunification period
- Jim CrowRacial separation laws
- plantation economyAgricultural system exploiting enslaved workers
- emancipationRelease from legal bondage
- landed gentryLandowning class living on rents
cotton economy · Great Migration · rural exodus · forty acres · land reform · freedpeople · postbellum
Employer-operated retail outlet
- unfair contractsAgreements with exploitative terms
- underpaymentInsufficient wages rendered
- dependencyState of needing support
- coercionPressured compliance through threats
cheating · poverty trap · indebtedness · overcharging · forced labor · predatory lending
halves
Equal portions of whole
- landlordProperty owner renting out
- tenant farmerOne who leases farmland
- landownerOne possessing real estate
settlement · furnish · cropland · acreage · leasehold · rent · cropper · oral contract · rental agreement · plantation system
cotton picking
Gathering fiber from plants
- tobacco cultivationGrowing plants for cigarettes
- fieldworkResearch conducted on location
- plantingPlacing seeds in earth
harvest · plowing · hoeing · sowing · cultivation · manual labor · seasonal work · backbreaking · weeding · threshing
Reconstruction
Post-1865 national reunification period
- Jim CrowRacial separation laws
- plantation economyAgricultural system exploiting enslaved workers
- emancipationRelease from legal bondage
landed gentry · cotton economy · Great Migration · rural exodus · forty acres · land reform · freedpeople · postbellum
company store
Employer-operated retail outlet
- unfair contractsAgreements with exploitative terms
- underpaymentInsufficient wages rendered
- dependencyState of needing support
coercion · cheating · poverty trap · indebtedness · overcharging · forced labor · predatory lending
sharecroppedowned
Possessed legally
landowning · homesteaded · proprietorship · tenant farming · rented
sharecroppedself-employed
Working independently, not hired
subsistence farming · commercial farming · wage labor · hired hand