Editing Sharecropping (section)

==Overview==
Under a sharecropping system, landowners provided a share of land to be worked by the sharecropper, and usually provided other necessities such as housing, tools, seed, or [[working animal]]s.<ref name=":0" /> Local merchants usually provide food and other supplies to the sharecropper on credit. In exchange for the land and supplies, the cropper would pay the owner a share of the crop at the end of the season, typically one-half to two-thirds. The cropper used his share to pay off their debt to the merchant.<ref name=":1">Ronald L. F. Davis "The U. S. Army and the Origins of Sharecropping in the Natchez District—A Case Study" ''The Journal of Negro History'', Vol. 62, No.1 (January 1977), pp. 60–80 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2717191 in JSTOR]</ref> If there was any cash left over, the cropper kept it—but if their share came to less than what they owed, they remained in debt.

A new system of credit, the [[Crop-lien system|crop lien]], became closely associated with sharecropping. Under this system, a planter or merchant extended a line of credit to the sharecropper while taking the year's crop as collateral. The sharecropper could then draw food and supplies all year long. When the crop was harvested, the planter or merchants who held the lien sold the harvest for the sharecropper and settled the debt.

Sociologist Jeffery M. Paige made a distinction between centralized sharecropping found on cotton plantations and the decentralized sharecropping with other crops. The former is characterized by long lasting tenure. Tenants are tied to the landlord through the [[plantation store]]. This form of tenure tends to be replaced by paid salaries as markets penetrate. Decentralized sharecropping involves virtually no role for the landlord: plots are scattered, peasants manage their own labor and the landowners do not manufacture the crops. This form of tenure becomes more common when markets penetrate.<ref>Jeffery Paige, ''Agrarian Revolution'', page 373</ref>

Farmers who farmed land belonging to others but owned their own mule and plow were called [[tenant farmer]]s; they owed the landowner a smaller share of their crops, as the landowner did not have to provide them with as much in the way of supplies.