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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.
Why did sharecroppers rejoice at the chance to become tenant farmers?
It seemed to much like slavery. Why did sharecroppers rejoice at the chance to become tenant farmers? Tenants chose which crops to plant and when and how much to work.
What increased the number of farmers and farms on the frontier?
Farm production and declining prices. Bringing new lands under cultivation and the widespread use of machinery led to a tremendous increase in farm production. They had borrowed heavily to buy their land and equipment and, as prices continued to fall, were unable to pay their debts.
What was one reason sharecropping began in the south quizlet?
What was one reason why sharecropping began in the South? It was a way to take advantage of the South’s strong infrastructure. The federal government required Southerners to use this system. The Southern economy and farms had been destroyed during the Civil War.
What was the main reason farmers lost their properties to banks?
Farmers Grow Angry and Desperate. During World War I, farmers worked hard to produce record crops and livestock. When prices fell they tried to produce even more to pay their debts, taxes and living expenses. In the early 1930s prices dropped so low that many farmers went bankrupt and lost their farms.
How did sharecropping change the lives of African Americans?
In addition, while sharecropping gave African Americans autonomy in their daily work and social lives, and freed them from the gang-labor system that had dominated during the slavery era, it often resulted in sharecroppers owing more to the landowner (for the use of tools and other supplies, for example) than they were able to repay.
Ideally, sharecroppers were able to become share-tenants and cash-tenants. Share tenants rented land from a large-scale farm, just like sharecroppers. However, share-tenants owned their own equipment and supplies or were able to buy their own equipment and supplies.
What does sharecropping mean in the agricultural system?
Sharecropping is a system where the landlord/planter allows a tenant to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop.
The Great Depression, mechanization, and other factors lead sharecropping to fade away in the 1940s. Video Player is loading. This is a modal window. The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported.