Sharecropping and Tenant Farming

       After the Civil War, land owners and farmers needed workers to farm their land. Many former slaves and poor whites needed jobs. Workers who had no jobs, tools, or supplies started sharecropping. Under sharecropping, the landowners provided land, a house, farming tools and animals, seed, and fertilizer. The workers agreed to give the owner a share of the crops. Until the workers sold their crop, the owners often let them purchase food, medicine, clothing, and other supplies at high prices on credit. Credit is the ability to buy something now and pay for it later or over a period of time. After selling the crop and paying the credit bills, most sharecroppers had little to no cash left. Because few sharecroppers could read or do math, the land owner or the store owner could easily cheat them, and many did. Year after year, sharecroppers were in debt (owed more money than they could earn). They had little hope they could ever save enough to buy their own land and equipment.

Sharecroppers

Tenant farming was very similar to sharecropping. The main difference was that tenant farmers usually owned some farming equipment and farm animals, such as mules. They also bought their own seed and fertilizer. At the end of the year, tenant farmers either paid the landowner a set amount of cash or a share of their harvest. Because tenant farmers owned more than sharecroppers, they usually made a small profit. However, the lives of both groups were very hard. The tenant farming and sharecropping systems allowed landowners to keep their farms running without having to spend money for workers. At the end of Reconstruction, cotton was again the most important crop grown in most of Georgia. However, the coastal region never again produced the same amount of cotton or rice.