sharecropping
Crop-paying tenant system
Sharecropping is a farming arrangement where a tenant works land owned by someone else in exchange for a share of the crop produced.
The landowner typically provides land, housing, and supplies; the sharecropper provides labor.
In the American South after the Civil War, sharecropping replaced slavery but often trapped Black farmers in cycles of debt and dependency: Three generations of his family had sharecropped that land.
Plant fiber for textiles
- tobaccoDried smoking leaf
- riceStaple cereal grain
- sugarcaneSucrose-yielding tropical grass
- cornCereal grown on cobs
peanuts · soybeans · indigo · vegetables · commodity · bale · yield · harvest
Research conducted on location
- pickingAct of selecting
- choppingCutting into pieces
- plowingTurning earth for crops
- plantingPlacing seeds in earth
harvesting · hoeing · sowing · cultivating · weeding · threshing · cotton-picking · toil
People released from slavery
- segregationForced separation by group
- disenfranchisementRemoval of voting rights
- inequalityUnequal distribution of resources
- exploitationSelfish use of others
Large-scale farming operation
- landownerOne possessing real estate
- landlordProperty owner renting out
- settlementResolved dispute or colony
- contractEnforceable written agreement
Post-1865 national reunification period
- freedmenPeople released from slavery
- emancipationRelease from legal bondage
- AAATop credit rating
- mechanizationConverting to machine operation
tractor · decline · antebellum · Southern
Minimal means of living
- impoverishmentState of extreme deprivation
- hardshipSuffering from difficult circumstances
- malnutritionDisease from dietary inadequacy
- hungerNeed for nourishment
shack · deprivation · want · hand-to-mouth · landlessness · dispossession · indebtedness · penury
Supply or equip
- interestAttention, stake, or fee
- overchargingDemanding excessive payment
- cheatingDeceptive rule-breaking
- illiteracyInability to read
trapped · dependency · powerlessness · coercion · intimidation
cotton
Plant fiber for textiles
corn · peanuts · soybeans · indigo · vegetables · commodity · bale · yield · harvest · ginning
fieldwork
Research conducted on location
planting · harvesting · hoeing · sowing · cultivating · weeding · threshing · cotton-picking · toil · backbreaking
freedmen
People released from slavery
- segregationForced separation by group
- disenfranchisementRemoval of voting rights
- inequalityUnequal distribution of resources
plantation
Large-scale farming operation
- landownerOne possessing real estate
- landlordProperty owner renting out
- settlementResolved dispute or colony
contract · halves · credit · company-store
Reconstruction
Post-1865 national reunification period
- freedmenPeople released from slavery
- emancipationRelease from legal bondage
- AAATop credit rating
mechanization · tractor · decline · antebellum · Southern
subsistence
Minimal means of living
- impoverishmentState of extreme deprivation
- hardshipSuffering from difficult circumstances
- malnutritionDisease from dietary inadequacy
hunger · shack · deprivation · want · hand-to-mouth · landlessness · dispossession · indebtedness · penury
furnish
Supply or equip
- interestAttention, stake, or fee
- overchargingDemanding excessive payment
- cheatingDeceptive rule-breaking
illiteracy · trapped · dependency · powerlessness · coercion · intimidation
- 1800s AmericaOregon Trail, Trail of Tears, transcontinental railroad, Civil War, Abraham Lincoln
- Black HistoryMartin Luther King Jr., MLK, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass
- rural lifefarms, village, villages, farming, farmhouses
- 1860sAbraham Lincoln, American Civil War, Appomattox, Confederacy, Confederate States
- frontier lifehomesteaders, farmer, homesteading, shepherd, pioneer women
- Old Farmingplowing, harvesting, sowing, threshing, winnowing
sharecroppingland ownership
Possessing property rights
smallholding · homesteading · estate ownership · proprietorship · tenant farming
sharecroppingeconomic independence
Financial self-sufficiency
landownership · self-sufficiency · freedom · prosperity · upward mobility
crop, share, shared, sharing, crops, shares, cropped, cropping, unshared