Sharecropping The New South

Describe what you see in this picture. What is this a picture of Describe what you see in this picture. What is this a picture of? Why do you think that?

Go to page 225 in the text or packet and read the page about sharecropping and tenant farmers with a partner. Answer these questions about the passage. Generally explain what sharecropping is in a sentence or two. Did conditions in the South change for African-Americans?

Read this contract A Sharecropping Contract: 1882 (Modified) To everyone renting land, the following conditions must be agreed to: For every 30 acres of land (rented by sharecroppers), I will provide a mule team, plow, and farming tools. The sharecroppers can have half of the cotton, corn, peas, pumpkins, and potatoes they grow if the following conditions are followed, but--if not--they are to have only two-fifths. For every mule or horse furnished by me there must be 1000 good sized rails (logs) hauled, and the fence repaired if I so direct. All sharecroppers must haul rails (logs) and work on the fence whenever I may order. The wood must be split and the fence repaired before corn is planted. No cotton must be planted by sharecroppers on their home patches of land. No sharecropper is to work off the plantation when there is any work for them to do for me.

Continued… Every sharecropper must be responsible for all farming gear placed in his hands, and if not returned must be paid for unless it is worn out by use. Nothing can be sold from their (sharecroppers’) crops until my rent is all paid, and all amounts they owe me are paid in full. I am to gin & pack all of the cotton and charge every sharecropper an eighteenth of his part, the cropper to furnish his part of the bagging, ties, & twine. The sale of every sharecropper's part of the cotton to be made by me when and where I choose to sell, and after taking all they owe me. Source: Grimes Family Papers (#3357), 1882; Held in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Sharecropping In the South, the problems with the system were obvious Both the landowners and sharecroppers were usually Baptist, so ministers had a lot to say about the system. The ministers said that the system was bad for the owners and the farmers. The tenants might be bad at farming or managing their time, so the landowner wasn’t getting full profit and the tenant was stuck in poverty. The sharecropper was “vulnerable to intimidation and shortchanging” There was nothing the sharecroppers could do because they never had enough money to leave and start something else. A new system of credit, the crop lien, began. In this model, a planter or merchant extended a line of credit to the sharecropper while taking the year's crop as collateral. The sharecropper could then draw food and supplies all year long. When the crop was harvested, the planter or merchants who held the lien sold the harvest for the sharecropper and settled the debt. Sharecropping

History of the system The system grew and by the 1930s, there were 5,500,000 white sharecroppers and 3 million African American Sharecroppers. In Mississippi, by 1900, 36% of all white farmers were tenants or sharecroppers, while 85 percent of black farmers were. The system stayed in place until the 1940s when farm equipment and major mechanization made farm laborers mostly unnecessary.

Black Codes Carpetbagger Scalawag Sharecropping Solid South TERM IMAGE DEFINITION Black Codes   Carpetbagger Scalawag Sharecropping Solid South Impeachment  x` Ku Klux Klan