A post-bellum farming system that mirrored southern slavery, sharecropping entailed far more black than white tenant farmers. Blacks accommodated it to survive, to escape gang work and the whip. They hoped to support themselves while protecting their women and children.

Landlords and sharecroppers signed contracts for “halves.” The landlord furnished the land, house, fuel, tools, work stock, feed for stock, seed, and half the fertilizer; he earned half the crop. The cropper supplied labor and half the fertilizer, earning half the crop. He also had to repay (at high interest) for food and supplies from the store, clearing little or nothing when he settled. Sharecropping fueled landlords’ cheating as well as racial violence. It lasted until the twentieth century mechanization of cotton planting and harvesting saw croppers migrate by millions to seek better livelihoods in cities.