USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -By the early 1870s, the system known as sharecropping had come to dominate agriculture across the South. Under this system, families would rent small plots of land, or shares, to work themselves; in return, they would give a portion of their crop to the landowner at the end of the harvest season.

Detailed explanation-2: -High interest rates, unpredictable harvests, and unscrupulous landlords and merchants often kept tenant farm families severely indebted, requiring the debt to be carried over until the next year or the next.

Detailed explanation-3: -Through sharecropping, white landowners hoarded the profits of Black workers’ agricultural labor, trapping them in poverty and debt for generations. Black people who challenged this system of domination faced threats, violence, and even murder.

Detailed explanation-4: -The system of sharecropping resulted in keeping freed slaves economically disadvantaged. They were not paid money for their labor and received just a portion of the crop as their ‘pay’. This kept them dependent on the landowners.