sharecropping

Cultural  

1. A system of farming that developed in the South after the Civil War, when landowners, many of whom had formerly held slaves, lacked the cash to pay wages to farm laborers, many of whom were former slaves. The system called for dividing the crop into three shares — one for the landowner, one for the worker, and one for whoever provided seeds, fertilizer, and farm equipment.

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Example Sentences

Many of the victims were descendants of the enslaved who had been forced into sharecropping.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 13, 2024

Born to sharecropping parents in North Carolina in 1904, Kittrell was the eighth of nine children.

From Scientific American • Oct. 26, 2023

Born in Tennessee into a sharecropping family, she first found prominence as one of the backing singers for her husband's band The Kings of Rhythm.

From BBC • May 24, 2023

From sharecropping SB Nation team blogs to credulous Huffington Post fellowships, the digital media sector was once singularly financed by their toil.

From Slate • Apr. 12, 2023

They stayed to themselves, kept on sharecropping, and saving every dollar they could; hoping that someday they could buy a farm of their own.

From "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls