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Article: Sharecroppers
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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SHARECROPPERS
SHARECROPPERS
were agricultural wage laborers who raised crops on farm plots owned by large landowners in the post
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Civil War era. Both landless whites and blacks worked as sharecroppers, although the majority of sharecroppers were African Americans. The system of sharecropping primarily existed in the southern states and was the end result of struggles between former planters and recently freed slaves over the terms of a new labor system. On one level, sharecropping was a compromise between planters who wanted a docile labor force and freedmen who wanted to purchase and work their own farmlands. In this arrangement, the planter supplied the sharecropper with the ...