Sharecropping
By Don Valentine
In 1865 the life of Black people progressed ever so slightly, in glacial increments. The final months of the Civil War saw tens of thousands of freed slaves leave their plantations to follow General William Sherman. They aided his victorious Union Army troops across Georgia and the Carolinas. In January 1865, in an effort to address the issues caused by this growing number of refugees, Sherman issued a Special Field Order. It was a temporary plan granting each freed family 40 acres of land on the islands and coastal region of Georgia. The Union Army also donated some of its mules, unneeded for battle purposes, to the former slaves.
Instead, as one of the first acts of Reconstruction, President Andrew Johnson ordered all land under federal control to be returned to its previous owners. This was done to appease the Confederate plantation owners. Ergo, the refrain “where is my 40 acres and a mule?”
The origin of “Sharecropping” was an invention of necessity by both races. White Southerners could not pay wages to the newly freed slaves. Their Confederate dollars were useless and the banking industry was in shambles. The slave owners had never had to pay for wages before. They had the land, but no one to farm it. So, a contract of crop sharing tentatively arose. The landowner would provide the land, the animals and the seeds, and freed slaves would provide the labor. During the season, the White owner or a merchant store would loan them food, shelter, medicine, etc. At the end of the season, the parties would split the harvest and the profits. The ex slaves were in effect putting up their future harvest as collateral to finance the necessary equipment and land rental costs.
This impromptu formula was bound to fail. An effort was legislated after the war to reassert White supremacy. The economic demise for this business came in two parts. The price of cotton, the primary crop in the south, fell drastically. This resulted in the Black sharecroppers doing the same level of work and getting reduced pay for their effort. The ex slaves did not have enough money to pay their loans for seed, food, and other ancillary needs. The debt to the landowners compounded year after year until there was no way to ever repay it. This tied sharecroppers to the plantation land without an option to leave.
The Great Depression, and the boll weevil devastated the cotton crop. The soil was depleted due to the lack of crop rotation, and the mechanization of farm work made Black labor less valuable. This heralded the end of sharecropping.
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