sharecroppers

Sharecropping is a system of agricultural production in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced. In practice, the landowner typically provided the land and may supply seeds, tools, housing, and sometimes food or credit, while the sharecropper contributed labor and limited capital. At harvest, crops were divided according to an agreed share, commonly around one-half to two-thirds for the landowner and the remainder for the tenant. In many cases, the sharecropper purchased supplies on credit from the landowner or a local store, creating a crop lien or debt that could accumulate over time.

Sharecropping became widespread in the United States after the Civil War, especially in the Southern states, where it offered a way to organize labor without slavery and to retain land in the hands of white landowners. It also provided freedpeople and poor farmers with access to land they could not otherwise rent, though bargaining power favored landowners and merchants. The system often produced long cycles of debt and dependence, with variable wages and exposure to weather and market fluctuations.

Over the 20th century, sharecropping declined as agricultural mechanization, price changes, rural migration, and legal and social reforms reduced its use. Its legacy remains in the regional rural economy and in discussions of race, labor, and land tenure.

See also: tenant farming, crop lien, peonage.