1. Sharecropping Francisco De La Cruz Alberto Flores

2. Sharecropping? Sharecropping is a system of agriculture where the landlord/planter allows a tenant to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop. A poor farmer who did not own land would work a plot belonging to a landowner and then farmer would receive a share from the harvest as his payment.

3. Time Period Sharecropping began in the south in the period of Reconstruction that happened after the Civil War ended. From around 1865 to 1871.

4. Affect on African American people Black families would rent small plots of land in return for a portion of their crop so they could give it to the landowner. It allowed former slaves to have a place to stay and farm as long as they used that money to pay the farmers. So even if they could go out and choose what farm to crop at, they still were under somebody’s control so it was still a little bit of slavery to some people. They didn’t have too much control on knowing how much the crops would be sold for since they did not know about the price system so maybe they were cheated on that too without knowing it.

5. What led to the creation of sharecropping? The absence of cash or an independent credit system. After the Civil War, land owners had nobody to crop and little money to pay and former black slaves had no money and no land so that’s why the sharecropping system developed.

6. What happened after the Civil War? African Americans were freed from slavery. Former slaves sought jobs because they had no money or homes of their own. And planters sought jobs. It was a time of Reconstruction.

7. What often kept tenant farm families severely indebted? High interest rates Unpredictable harvests Unscrupulous landlords Merchants

8. Why did sharecroppers began to organize? About two-thirds were white and one-third were black. They wanted better working rights through the integrated Southern Tenant Farmers Union.

9. What lead sharecropping to finally fade away in the 1940s? The Great Depression Mechanization Other factors

10. “We’d get $12 per bale and we had to pick hard in order to have money to buy food during that season.” This shows what sharecroppers would go through. Black families still suffered because it was hard work and very little pay.

11. “When we worked on shares, We couldn’t Make Nothing” Quote from an African-American farmer who remembers helping his dad during sharecropping when he was 8 years old. He means that all the work they put in of cropping for the land owner to sell was not enough because since they had to share the money sometimes it wasn’t enough anyways. So all the hard labor wasn’t worth it because its not like they would keep the money the land owner would sell it for.

12. Part of sharecropper family on porch of cabin, 1938

13. Sharecropping