101. A Sharecropping Contract (1866) Source: Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Tennessee, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, National Archives. Despite the widespread desire for land, few former slaves were able to acquire farms of their own in the post-Civil War South. Most ended up as sharecroppers, working on white-owned land for a share of the crop at the end of the growing season. Sharecropping was a kind of compromise between Black peoples' desire for independence from white control and planters' desire for a disciplined labor force. This contract, representative of thousands, originated in Shelby County, Tennessee. The laborers signed with an X, as they were illiterate. Typical of early postwar contracts, it gave the planter the right to supervise the labor of his employees. Later sharecropping contracts afforded former enslaved people greater autonomy. Families would rent parcels of land, work it under their own direction, and divide the crop with the owner at the end of the year. But as the price of cotton fell continuously after the Civil War, workers found it difficult to profit from the sharecropping system. D THOMAS J. R Ross agrees to employ the Freedmen to plant and raise a crop Chapter 15: "What Is Freedom?": Reconstruction, 1865-1877 tv A 000 MacBook Air 10 DII DD Questions 1. In what ways does the contract limit the freedom of the laborers? 2. What kinds of benefits and risks for the freedpeople are associated with a sharecropping arrangement?

101. A Sharecropping Contract (1866) Source: Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Tennessee, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, National Archives. Despite the widespread desire for land, few former slaves were able to acquire farms of their own in the post-Civil War South. Most ended up as sharecroppers, working on white-owned land for a share of the crop at the end of the growing season. Sharecropping was a kind of compromise between Black peoples' desire for independence from white control and planters' desire for a disciplined labor force. This contract, representative of thousands, originated in Shelby County, Tennessee. The laborers signed with an X, as they were illiterate. Typical of early postwar contracts, it gave the planter the right to supervise the labor of his employees. Later sharecropping contracts afforded former enslaved people greater autonomy. Families would rent parcels of land, work it under their own direction, and divide the crop with the owner at the end of the year. But as the price of cotton fell continuously after the Civil War, workers found it difficult to profit from the sharecropping system. D THOMAS J. R Ross agrees to employ the Freedmen to plant and raise a crop Chapter 15: "What Is Freedom?": Reconstruction, 1865-1877 tv A 000 MacBook Air 10 DII DD Questions 1. In what ways does the contract limit the freedom of the laborers? 2. What kinds of benefits and risks for the freedpeople are associated with a sharecropping arrangement?