Language of the Blues - Edmonton Blues Society

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A bargain was struck. White landowners mortgaged their properties or convinced local
banks to extend them enough credit to buy seeds and plantings, tools, and basic
provisions for the freed slaves. The ex-slaves, in turn, agreed to stay on the plantations
and plant and harvest the crops in exchange for half their value.
Unfortunately, because the landowners sold their tenants seeds, fertilizer, tools, food, and
other supplies on credit, the owners set both prices and interest rates as they wished.
Although some landowners were fair, many took advantage by overcharging tenants so
zero, or even leave the cropper in debt to the landlord.
Sharecropping was not exclusive to the post~Civil War United States. Peasants around
the world have been stuck in this feudalistic system for generations. Many immigrants to
the United States, such as sharecroppers from Sicily, came in hopes of one day owning,
rather than renting, a patch of land. Resentment of the patron, or landowner, fueled Fidel
president Salvador Allende in Chile in 1970, and ongoing struggles between landowners
and peasants around the world.
Although in the United States sharecropping began as mutual cooperation born of
desperation, it developed into modern-day feudalism. Once the system got going, the
larger plantations printed their own money and minted their own coins for sharecroppers
to use at the plantation store. These stores were in a position to charge exorbitant prices
for necessities. Plantation money was usually accepted in the nearest town, but was
useless anywhere else. This situation kept many African Americans tied to the plantation
long after Emancipation.
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parents, and grew up
unfortunately we were not one of those families. It was hard, working in the fields in the
hot sun, sometimes in the rain. You'd go out so early, before the sun came up, and stay
for the hard work that you did. 333
-- it all depends on how fair-minded he was -- you would come
out with a little money. And if he was one of those guys that wanted to keep you down,
. Maybe you still owe! A lot of folks were not
Plantation owners hired salaried white overseers to enforce rigid rules and drive the
tenants to work as hard as possible. Along with being threatened and punished,
sharecroppers were routinely cheated, and a second definition for sharecropping emerged
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