how is sharecropping similar to and different from slavery
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how is sharecropping similar to and different from slavery?
Expert Solution
Introduction
The end of slavery during the Reconstruction period caused economic upheavals in the South; as a response to the financial crisis, the Sharecropping system emerged.
Explanation
The following are the similarities between the sharecropping system and slavery:-
- Under the sharecropping system, the landowner allows the tenant to use the land and receive a crop share.
- The system assured that the tenant would remain tied to the land and could not leave for any other opportunity.
- The exorbitant interest rates, uncertain harvest, and dishonest landlords and merchants kept the tenant farm families in persistent debt, causing them to enter into the vicious cycle of debts.
- The laws favored landowners and did not allow the sharecroppers to sell their crops to others.
- Like slavery, the sharecropping system benefited the owners and allowed the white plantation owners to control the blacks by trapping them under massive debts.
- In both the systems, the African-Americans worked for the whites, and the whites collected crops.
The following are the differences between the sharecropping system and slavery:-
- The slaves were their owners' property, who could not leave, while the Sharecroppers were free people who chose to work and could go after giving the due payment.
- The sharecropping system gave the blacks autonomy in their daily work and social lives. The slave owners controlled all aspects of the lives of their slaves.
- The sharecroppers, unlike the slaves, were freed from the exploitative gang-labor systems.
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