Editing Sharecropping (section)

=== Africa ===
In settler colonies of colonial Africa, sharecropping was a feature of the agricultural life. White farmers, who owned most of the land, were frequently unable to work the whole of their farm for lack of capital. Therefore, they had African farmers to work the excess on a sharecropping basis.

In South Africa the 1913 [[Natives' Land Act]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/native-land-act-passed|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20101014095049/http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/chronology/thisday/1913-06-19.htm|url-status=dead|title=The Native Land Act is passed &#124; South African History Online|archive-date=14 October 2010|website=Sahistory.org.za|access-date=22 October 2023}}</ref> outlawed the ownership of land by Africans in areas designated for white ownership and effectively reduced the status of most sharecroppers to [[tenant farmer]]s and then to farm laborers. In the 1960s, generous subsidies to white farmers meant that most farmers could afford to work their entire farms, and sharecropping faded out.

The arrangement has reappeared in other African countries in modern times, including [[Ghana]]<ref>Leonard, R. and Longbottom, J., [https://archive.today/20120802093825/http://www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?l=919&n=363&o=7411IIED&w=NR ''Land Tenure Lexicon: A glossary of terms from English and French speaking West Africa'']'' International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), London, 2000''</ref> and [[Zimbabwe]].<ref name="nyambara">{{cite web|title=Rural Landlords, Rural Tenants, and the Sharecropping Complex in Gokwe, Northwestern Zimbabwe, 1980s–2002|url=http://www.ies.wisc.edu/ltc/live/zimbabwe/sym1b.pdf|author=Pius S. Nyambara|year=2003|access-date=2006-05-18|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060326145652/http://www.ies.wisc.edu/ltc/live/zimbabwe/sym1b.pdf|archive-date=2006-03-26}}, Centre for Applied Social Sciences, University of Zimbabwe and Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin–Madison, March 2003 (200Kb PDF)</ref>

Economic historian Pius S. Nyambara argued that [[Eurocentrism|Eurocentric]] historiographical devices such as "feudalism" or "slavery" often qualified by weak prefixes like "semi-" or "quasi-" are not helpful in understanding the antecedents and functions of sharecropping in Africa.<ref name="nyambara" />