The Effect of Emancipation and Sharecropping on the Tennessee and South Carolina Economies

 

Abstract:

This discussion will provide a narrative history that discusses the development and growing necessity of the sharecropping system in the postbellum South. The discussion will focus specifically on sharecropping in the states of Tennessee and South Carolina and the economic reasons for the shift as well as the economic impact of both emancipation and the development of the sharecropping system on these two states. It will also look at the racial aspect of sharecropping, with many historians viewing the development of the system as a way to keep freedmen oppressed and perpetuate a system of racism in the South. Looking at the development of the sharecropping system and the impacts on the economy help to gain an understanding of the overall economic impacts of emancipation. Narrowing the scope of this discussion to primarily look at two specific states provides a more in depth and specific understanding but also allows a comparison to understand if these impacts were the same across the South.

 

The Effect of Emancipation and Sharecropping on the Tennessee and South Carolina Economies

With the abolition of slavery, the South found that they were in a position that necessitated the restructuring of their agricultural systems. This restructuring was not as much of an issue for smaller family operated farms that had typically only used a small number of slaves to supplement the labor of the family. However, on larger plantations which relied almost completely on slaves for labor it was necessary for a total restructuring of the labor system to occur.[1] Immediately following the war there was a period of instability that occurred, and “sharecropping emerged as an acceptable compromise between landowners seeking a system of labor organization and landless farmers seeking a system of land tenure.”[2] This instability did not give way immediately to the sharecropping system however, rather there was an intermediate period that consisted of something called “the squad system” in which plantations were divided into subgroups called squads who each worked on an area of the plantation that was allotted to it in exchange for a share of the crop that was produced.[3] It took about a decade and a half for the full transition into the sharecropping system to occur.[4] Sharecropping emerged because it had advantages for both landowners and landless farmers[5], however many historians have viewed the sharecropping system as one that was “designed primarily to mobilize the labor of freedmen and to keep blacks dependent upon and subordinate to white planters”.[6] Despite these claims from historians, sharecropping proved to be an important method of agricultural development, not just in the South but in the United States as a whole and it continued after the postbellum period. In 1880, 12% of farms in the South were rented and 24% were sharecropped and by 1910, 15% of farms in the South were rented and 35% were sharecropped.[7]

While in the immediate decade following the war sharecropping contracts in Tennessee show this attempt to keep blacks dependent on white planters with a large disparity appearing in the wording on contracts between black workers and white planters and those of white workers with white planters, by 1870 these disparities began to disappear. In early contracts, freedmen were required to work for the planter in exchange for a share of the crops produced, whereas the contracts with white croppers typically stated that the planter would receive a share of the profits in exchange for the land being used to produce the crops.[8] As legislation in the state of Tennessee changed the employer-employee relationship of the early sharecropper contracts for blacks changed as well, the Tennessee Supreme Court passed legislation that defined sharecropping as a “tenants-in-common” relationship, meaning that the parties in the contract were co-owners, though each owner had a different unequal share of the property.[9] This legislation meant that croppers could no longer be classified as employees of planters in sharecropping contracts and the biggest change was that this “made it absolutely clear that the tiller’s portion of the proceeds represented personal property, not wages, a condition that applied to black as well as white croppers.”[10] As time went on there is no evidence that there was a difference between the treatment of black and white croppers after the initial time of implementing the system. Ultimately the system of sharecropping within Tennessee provided both black and white croppers with easier access to land, equipment and credit which was often supplied in terms of equipment and food by the landowner per the contract agreement.[11]

The traditional collective share agreement utilized in Tennessee was also the most common method used in South Carolina as well,[12] though it appears there were more employment opportunities in South Carolina for freedmen outside of sharecropping which negatively impacted certain parts of the South Carolina agriculture industry. While the same benefits existed in South Carolina from sharecropping that existed in Tennessee, there were other lines of work that were less grueling such as the growing industries of fertilizer, lumber and turpentine within the state. With these other lines of work, it made it difficult for certain industries to find labor even with the incentives that sharecropping could offer. This was evident with “the labor shortage contributing to the failure of the state’s rice crop in both 1865 and 1866.”[13] Besides the labor shortage, South Carolina planters also faced another challenge after the emancipation of slaves, which was that they no longer had the ability to use their slaves as collateral for loans which limited their access to credit.[14]

Regardless of the negative aspects that have pointed out by many historians, it is evident that sharecropping was an important and influential economic system that developed in the postbellum South. In Tennessee it proved useful in providing resources to those who previously would not have had access to them. However even with this restructuring and some of the benefits that came from the development of the sharecropping system, the case in South Carolina shows that the war and emancipation presented the Southern economy with many new challenges and some industry were largely negatively affected.

 

Works Cited

Garrett Jr., Martin A. and Zhenhui Xu, “The Efficiency of Sharecropping: Evidence from the Postbellum South,” Southern Economic Journal 69, no. 3 (January 2003): 579, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1061695.

Latzko, David A., “Mapping the Short-Run Impact of the Civil War and Emancipation on the South Carolina Economy,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 116, no. 4 (Octboer 2015): 261, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44289835.

Shlomowitz, Ralph, “The Origins of Southern Sharecropping,” Agricultural History 53, no. 3 (July 1979): 571, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3742755

Winters, Donald L., “Postbellum Reorganization of Southern Agriculture: The Economics of Sharecropping in Tennessee,” Agricultural History 62, no. 4 (Autumn 1988): 1, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3743372

---

[1] Donald L. Winters, “Postbellum Reorganization of Southern Agriculture: The Economics of Sharecropping in Tennessee,” Agricultural History 62, no. 4 (Autumn 1988): 1, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3743372

[2] Donald L. Winters, “Postbellum Reorganization of Southern Agriculture: The Economics of Sharecropping in Tennessee,” Agricultural History 62, no. 4 (Autumn 1988): 1, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3743372

[3] Ralph Shlomowitz, “The Origins of Southern Sharecropping,” Agricultural History 53, no. 3 (July 1979): 571, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3742755

[4] Ralph Shlomowitz, “The Origins of Southern Sharecropping,” Agricultural History 53, no. 3 (July 1979): 571, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3742755

[5] Donald L. Winters, “Postbellum Reorganization of Southern Agriculture: The Economics of Sharecropping in Tennessee,” Agricultural History 62, no. 4 (Autumn 1988): 1, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3743372.

[6] Donald L. Winters, “Postbellum Reorganization of Southern Agriculture: The Economics of Sharecropping in Tennessee,” Agricultural History 62, no. 4 (Autumn 1988): 3, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3743372.

[7] Martin A. Garrett Jr. and Zhenhui Xu, “The Efficiency of Sharecropping: Evidence from the Postbellum South,” Southern Economic Journal 69, no. 3 (January 2003): 579, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1061695.

[8] Donald L. Winters, “Postbellum Reorganization of Southern Agriculture: The Economics of Sharecropping in Tennessee,” Agricultural History 62, no. 4 (Autumn 1988): 3-5, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3743372.

[9] Donald L. Winters, “Postbellum Reorganization of Southern Agriculture: The Economics of Sharecropping in Tennessee,” Agricultural History 62, no. 4 (Autumn 1988): 7, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3743372.

[10] Donald L. Winters, “Postbellum Reorganization of Southern Agriculture: The Economics of Sharecropping in Tennessee,” Agricultural History 62, no. 4 (Autumn 1988): 7, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3743372.

[11] Donald L. Winters, “Postbellum Reorganization of Southern Agriculture: The Economics of Sharecropping in Tennessee,” Agricultural History 62, no. 4 (Autumn 1988): 7, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3743372.

[12] Ralph Shlomowitz, “The Origins of Southern Sharecropping,” Agricultural History 53, no. 3 (July 1979): 568, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3742755.

[13] David A. Latzko, “Mapping the Short-Run Impact of the Civil War and Emancipation on the South Carolina Economy,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 116, no. 4 (Octboer 2015): 261, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44289835.

[14] David A. Latzko, “Mapping the Short-Run Impact of the Civil War and Emancipation on the South Carolina Economy,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 116, no. 4 (Octboer 2015): 261, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44289835.