Sharecropping facts for kids

An FSA photo of a cropper family chopping the weeds from cotton near White Plains, in Georgia, US (1941).

Sharecropping is a term for when one person farms another person's land, and then the two share what is produced. Sharecroppers are almost always poor, and are often in debt to landowners or other people. Sharecropping was very common in the Southern United States after the Civil War and the end of slavery. At that time, many African-Americans sharecropped on the land that they had once farmed as slaves. Sharecropping was part of the system of "Jim Crow", which kept blacks poor and not really citizens.

Sharecropping became more common in the Southern United States when slavery was abolished. During the 20th century it became rare there.

Images for kids

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  The commissary or company store for sharecroppers at Lake Providence as it appeared in the 19th century

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  Sharecroppers on the roadside after they were evicted for membership in the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (January 1936)

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  An early 20th century Texas sharecropper's home diorama at the Audie Murphy American Cotton Museum, in Greenville, Texas 2015

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  Cotton sharecroppers, Hale County, Alabama, 1936

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  Sharecropper's cabin displayed at Louisiana State Cotton Museum in Lake Providence, Louisiana (2013 photo)

See also

In Spanish: Aparcería para niños