Sharecropping system

Sharecropping is a system of farming developed in the Reconstruction era after the United States Civil War. Under this system, African-American citizens, recently freed by the Northern victory in the Civil War, could get jobs on a farm, working the land in return for a fraction of the crops. The arrangement was originally motivated by economic concerns; the landowners needed skilled labor, and the freed slaves had neither land nor cash with which to acquire it. The arrangement also protected the sharecroppers from financial ruin in the event of a bad crop. Some landowners demanded such a large share of the crop as to reduce the sharecroppers again to unfree labor.

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