Editing Sharecropping

{{Short description|Use of land by a tenant in return for a share of the crops produced}}
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[[File:Greene Co Ga1941 Delano.jpg|thumb|A [[Farm Security Administration]] photo of a cropper family chopping the weeds from cotton near [[White Plains, Georgia|White Plains]], in Georgia, US (1941)]]
{{Agriculture|land}}
'''Sharecropping''' is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be conflated with [[tenant farming]], providing the tenant a higher economic and social status.

Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range of different situations and types of agreements that have used a form of the system. Some are governed by tradition, and others by law. The [[France|French]] ''[[métayage]]'', the [[Catalonia|Catalan]] ''[[masoveria]]'', the [[Castile (historical region)|Castilian]] ''mediero'', the [[Slavs|Slavic]] ''połownictwo'' and ''izdolshchina, the [[Italy|Italian]] mezzadria'', and the [[Islamic economics|Islamic system]] of ''muzara‘a'' (المزارعة), are examples of legal systems that have supported sharecropping.

==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.

==Application by region==
Historically, sharecropping occurred extensively in [[Scotland]], [[Ireland]] and colonial [[Africa]]. Use of the sharecropper system has also been identified in England (as the practice of "farming to halves").<ref>Griffiths, Liz ''[http://www.bahs.org.uk/RHT/RHT%20issue%206.pdf Farming to Halves: A New Perspective on an Absurd and Miserable System]'' in Rural History Today, Issue 6:2004 p.5, accessed at British Agricultural History Society, 16 February 2013.</ref> It was widely used in the [[Southern United States]] during the [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]] era (1865–1877) that followed the [[American Civil War]], which was economically devastating to the Southern states.<ref name=":3" /> It is still used in many rural poor areas of the world today, notably in [[Pakistan]], [[India]], and [[Bangladesh]].<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Sanval|first1=Nasim|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jbOPCwAAQBAJ&dq=sharecropping+pakistan&pg=PA4|title=Optimal groundwater management in Pakistan's Indus Water Basin|last2=Steven|first2=Helfand|date=2016-01-15|publisher=Intl Food Policy Res Inst|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Chaudhuri|first1=Ananish|last2=Maitra|first2=Pushkar|date=2000-01-01|title=Sharecropping contracts in rural India: A note|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/00472330080000071|journal=Journal of Contemporary Asia|volume=30|issue=1|pages=99–107|doi=10.1080/00472330080000071|s2cid=154416728|issn=0047-2336|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Byres|first=T. J.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ulGQAgAAQBAJ&dq=sharecropping+bangladesh&pg=PA67|title=Sharecropping and Sharecroppers|date=2005-08-02|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-78003-6|language=en}}</ref>

=== 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" />

===United States===
[[File:Arkansas tenant farmers evicted January 1936.jpg|thumb|Sharecroppers on the roadside after they were evicted for membership in the [[Southern Tenant Farmers Union]] (January 1936)]]
{{Further|Black land loss in the United States|African-American history of agriculture in the United States|Jim Crow economy}}

Prior to the Civil War, sharecropping is known to have existed in [[Mississippi]] and is believed to have been in place in [[Tennessee]].<ref name="K12.MS.us">Charles Bolton, "[http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/index.php?s=extra&id=228 Farmers Without Land: The Plight of White Tenant Farmers and Sharecroppers] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304190417/http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/index.php?s=extra&id=228 |date=2016-03-04 }}", ''Mississippi History Now'', March 2004.</ref><ref name="TennesseeEncyclopedia.net">Robert Tracy McKenzie, "[http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=1193 Sharecropping]", ''Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture''.</ref> However, it was not until the economic upheaval caused by the [[American Civil War]] and the end of slavery during and after [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]] that it became widespread in the South.<ref>{{cite book|editor=Sharon Monteith|title=The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the American South|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DPMAXuWaArgC&pg=PA94|year=2013|publisher=Cambridge U.P.|page=94|isbn=9781107036789}}</ref><ref name=":3">Joseph D. Reid,  "Sharecropping as an understandable market response: The postbellum South." ''Journal of Economic History'' (1973) 33#1 pp. 106–130. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2117145 in JSTOR]</ref> It is theorized that sharecropping in the United States originated in the [[Natchez District]], roughly centered in [[Adams County, Mississippi]] with its county seat, [[Natchez, Mississippi|Natchez]].<ref>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>

After the war, plantations and other lands throughout the South were seized by the federal government. In January 1865, General [[William Tecumseh Sherman|William T. Sherman]] issued [[Special Field Orders No. 15]], which announced that he would temporarily grant newly freed families 40 acres of this seized land on the islands and coastal regions of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]]. Many believed that this policy would be extended to all former slaves and their families as repayment for their treatment at the end of the war. In the summer of 1865, President [[Andrew Johnson]], as one of the first acts of Reconstruction, instead ordered all land under federal control be returned to the owners from whom it had been seized.

[[File:Audie Murphy American Cotton Museum July 2015 05 (early 20th century Texas sharecropper's home diorama).jpg|thumb|An early 20th century [[Texas]] sharecropper's home diorama at the [[Audie Murphy American Cotton Museum]], in [[Greenville, Texas]] 2015|left]]
Southern landowners thus found themselves with a great deal of land but no liquid assets to pay for labor. They also maintained the "belief that gangs afforded the most efficient means of labor organization", something nearly all former slaves resisted. Preferring "to organize themselves into kin groups", as well as "minimize chances for white male-black female contact by removing their female kin from work environments supervised closely by whites", black southerners were "determined to resist the old slave ways".<ref>Jones, Jaqueline. ''[https://archive.org/details/laboroflovelabor0000jone Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family from Slavery to the Present]''. Basic Books, 1985.</ref> Not with standing, many former slaves, now called [[freedmen]], having no land or other assets of their own, needed to work to support their families. A sharecropping system centered on [[cotton]], a major [[cash crop]], developed as a result. Large plantations were subdivided into plots that could be worked by sharecroppers. Initially, sharecroppers in the American South were almost all formerly enslaved black people, but eventually cash-strapped [[Poor White|indigent white]] farmers were integrated into the system.<ref name=":1" /><ref name="Eva O 2007">Eva O'Donovan, ''Becoming Free in the Cotton South'' (2007); Gavin Wright, ''Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War'' (1986); Roger L. Ransom and David Beckham, ''One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation'' (2nd ed. 2008)</ref> During Reconstruction, the federal [[Freedmen's Bureau]] ordered the arrangements for freedmen and wrote and enforced their contracts.<ref name=":2">{{cite book|author=Gregorie, Anne King|title=History of Sumter County, South Carolina, p. 274|publisher=Library Board of Sumter County|year=1954}}</ref>

American sharecroppers worked a section of the plantation independently. In South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, the dominant crop was usually cotton.  In other areas it could be [[tobacco]], [[rice]], or [[sugar]]. At harvest time the crop was sold and the cropper received half of cash paid for the crop on his parcel.<ref>{{cite book|author=Woodman, Harold D.|title=New South – New Law: The legal foundations of credit and labor relations in the Postbellum agricultural South|publisher=Louisiana State University Press|year=1995|isbn=0-8071-1941-5|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/newsouthnewlawle0000wood}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2718|title=Poor Whites|encyclopedia=The New Georgia Encyclopedia|author=F. N. Boney|access-date=2006-05-18|date=2004-02-06|archive-date=2012-08-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120829030116/http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2718|url-status=dead}}</ref> Sharecroppers also often received their farming tools and all other goods from the landowner they were contracted with.<ref name=":0">Mandle, Jay R. Not Slave, Not Free: The African American Economic Experience Since the Civil War. Duke University Press, 1992, 22.</ref> Landowners dictated decisions relating to the crop mix, and sharecroppers were often in agreements to sell their portion of the crop back to the landowner, thus being subjected to manipulated prices.<ref name="Temple University Press">{{Cite book |last1=Royce |first1=Edward |title=The Origins of Southern Sharecropping |date=1993 |publisher=Temple University Press |isbn=9781566390699 |editor-last=Royce |editor-first=Edward |pages=181–222 |chapter=The Rise of Southern Sharecropping |jstor=j.ctt14bt3nz.9}}</ref> In addition to this, landowners, threatening to not renew the lease at the end of the growing season, were able to apply pressure to their tenants.<ref name="Temple University Press" /> Sharecropping often proved economically problematic, as the landowners held significant economic control.<ref>Ransom, Roger L., and Richard Sutch. ''One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation''. 2nd edition. Cambridge England ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001, 149.</ref>

[[File:Frank Tengle, Bud Fields, and Floyd Burroughs, cotton sharecroppers, Hale County, Alabama.jpg|thumb|Cotton sharecroppers, [[Hale County, Alabama|Hale County]], [[Alabama]], 1936]]
In the Reconstruction Era, sharecropping was one of few options for penniless [[freedmen]] to support themselves and their families. Other solutions included the [[crop-lien system]] (where the farmer was extended credit for seed and other supplies by the merchant), a rent labor system (where the farmer rents the land but keeps their entire crop), and the [[wage system]] (worker earns a fixed wage but keeps none of their crop).  Sharecropping as historically practiced in the American South was more economically productive than the [[gang system]] plantations using slave labor, though less productive than modern agricultural techniques.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{cite book|author1=Larry J. Griffin|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780820317298|title=The South As an American Problem|author2=Don Harrison Doyle|publisher=U. of Georgia Press|year=1995|isbn=9780820317526|page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780820317298/page/168 168]|url-access=registration}}</ref>

[[File:Sharecropper's cabin, Lake Providence, LA IMG 7385.JPG|thumb|Sharecropper's cabin displayed at [[Louisiana State Cotton Museum]] in [[Lake Providence, Louisiana|Lake Providence]], [[Louisiana]] (2013 photo)|left]]
Sharecropping continued to be a significant institution in many states for decades following the Civil War. By the early 1930s, there were 5.5 million white tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and mixed cropping/laborers in the United States; and 3 million Blacks.<ref>The Rockabilly Legends; They Called It Rockabilly Long Before they Called It Rock and Roll by Jerry Naylor and Steve Halliday DVD</ref><ref>The Devil's Music: A History of the Blues By Giles Oakley Edition: 2. Da Capo Press, 1997, p. 184. {{ISBN|0-306-80743-2}}, {{ISBN|978-0-306-80743-5}}</ref> In Tennessee, sharecroppers operated approximately one-third of all farm units in the state in the 1930s, with white people making up two thirds or more of the sharecroppers.<ref name="TennesseeEncyclopedia.net" /> In Mississippi, by 1900, 36% of all white farmers were tenants or sharecroppers, while 85% of black farmers were.<ref name="K12.MS.us" /> In Georgia, fewer than 16,000 farms were operated by black owners in 1910, while, at the same time, African-Americans managed 106,738 farms as tenants.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/sharecropping|title=Sharecropping|last=Geisen|first=James C.|date=January 26, 2007|website=New Georgia Encyclopedia|access-date=April 23, 2019}}</ref>

Around this time, sharecroppers began to form unions protesting against poor treatment, beginning in [[Tallapoosa County, Alabama|Tallapoosa County]], Alabama in 1931 and Arkansas in 1934. Membership in the [[Southern Tenant Farmers Union]] included both blacks and poor whites, who used meetings, protests, and [[Strike action|labor strikes]] to push for better treatment. The success of these actions frightened and enraged landlords, who responded with aggressive tactics.<ref>The Devil's Music: A History of the Blues
By Giles Oakley
Edition: 2. Da Capo Press, 1997, p. 185.
{{ISBN|0-306-80743-2}}, {{ISBN|978-0-306-80743-5}}
</ref> Landless farmers who fought the sharecropping system were socially denounced, harassed by legal and illegal means, and physically attacked by officials, landlords' agents, or in extreme cases, angry mobs.<ref name="All">''Sharecroppers All''. Arthur F. Raper and Ira De A. Reid. Chapell Hill 1941. The University of North Carolina Press, 2011, {{ISBN|978-0-8078-9817-8}}</ref> Sharecroppers' strikes in Arkansas and the [[Missouri Bootheel]], the 1939 Missouri Sharecroppers' Strike, were documented in the [[newsreel]] ''Oh Freedom After While''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://newsreel.org/main.asp|title=California Newsreel - Film and Video for Social Change Since 1968|website=Newsreel.org|access-date=22 October 2023}}</ref> The plight of a sharecropper was addressed in the song ''Sharecropper's Blues'', recorded by [[Charlie Barnet|Charlie Barnet and His Orchestra]] in 1944.<ref>{{cite AV media|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FyKigj35Ek| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211109/0FyKigj35Ek| archive-date=2021-11-09 | url-status=live|title=Charlie Barnet - Sharecropper's Blues|date=26 August 2011|work=YouTube}}{{cbignore}}</ref>[[File:Chapel for sharecroppers at Lake Providence, LA IMG 7389.JPG|thumb|Sharecroppers' chapel at Cotton Museum in Lake Providence]]The sharecropping system in the U.S. increased during the [[Great Depression]] with the creation of tenant farmers following the failure of many small farms throughout the [[Dustbowl]]. Traditional sharecropping declined after [[Mechanised agriculture|mechanization of farm work]] became economical beginning in the late 1930s and early 1940s.<ref name="TennesseeEncyclopedia.net" /><ref>Gordon Marshall, "[http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-sharecro.html Sharecropping]," ''Encyclopedia.com'', 1998.</ref> As a result, many sharecroppers were forced off the farms, and migrated to cities to work in factories, or became [[migrant worker]]s in the [[Western United States]] during [[World War II]]. By the end of the 1960s, sharecropping had disappeared in the United States.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}}

=== Sharecropping and socioeconomic status ===
[[File:J.B.Reeves (Evelyn Reeves) Tomball,TX - Sharecropper.jpg|left|thumb|207x207px|White sharecropper, J. B. Reeves, in [[Tomball, Texas]].]]
About two-thirds of sharecroppers were white, the rest black. Sharecroppers, the poorest of the poor, organized for better conditions. The racially integrated [[Southern Tenant Farmers Union]] made gains for sharecroppers in the 1930s. Sharecropping had diminished in the 1940s due to the Great Depression, farm mechanization, and other factors.<ref>{{cite web |title=Sharecropping |url=https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/sharecropping/ |website=[[Slavery by Another Name#Film adaptation|Slavery by Another Name]] |publisher=[[PBS]] |access-date=7 December 2021}}</ref>

== Impacts ==
Sharecropping may have been harmful to tenants, with many cases of high interest rates, unpredictable harvests, and unscrupulous landlords and merchants often keeping tenant farm families severely indebted. The debt was often compounded year on year leaving the cropper vulnerable to intimidation and shortchanging.<ref>{{cite web |title=Sharecropping {{!}} Slavery By Another Name Bento {{!}} PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/sharecropping/ |website=Sharecropping {{!}} Slavery By Another Name Bento {{!}} PBS}}</ref> Nevertheless, it appeared to be inevitable, with no serious alternative unless the croppers left agriculture.<ref>{{cite book |author=Rufus B. Spain |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m6wfDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA130 |title=At Ease in Zion: Social History of Southern Baptists, 1865-1900 |publisher=University of Alabama Press |year=1967 |isbn=9780817350383 |page=130}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Johnny E. Williams |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e_F2iBzFKjMC&pg=PA73 |title=African American Religion and the Civil Rights Movement in Arkansas |publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi |year=2008 |isbn=9781604731866 |page=73}}</ref>

Landlords opt for sharecropping to avoid the administrative costs and [[Efficiency wage|shirking]] that occurs on plantations and [[hacienda]]s. It is preferred to cash tenancy because cash tenants take all the risks, and any [[harvest failure]] will hurt them and not the landlord. Therefore, they tend to demand lower rents than sharecroppers.<ref name="tjbyres">Sharecropping and Sharecroppers, T J Byres</ref>

Some economists have argued that sharecropping is not as exploitative as it is often perceived. John Heath and Hans P. Binswanger write that "evidence from around the world suggests that sharecropping is often a way for differently endowed enterprises to pool resources to mutual benefit, overcoming credit restraints and helping to manage risk."<ref>
{{cite book |last1=Heath |first1=John |url=https://archive.org/details/agricultureenvir0000unse/page/32 |title=Agriculture and the Environment: Perspectives on Sustainable Rural Development |last2=Binswanger |first2=Hans P. |date=October 1998 |publisher=[[The World Bank]] |isbn=0-8213-4249-5 |editor-last=Lutz |editor-first=Ernest |location=[[Washington, DC]] |pages=[https://archive.org/details/agricultureenvir0000unse/page/32 32] |chapter=Chapter 3: Policy-Induced Effects of Natural Resource Degradation: The Case of Colombia |access-date=2011-04-01 |chapter-url=http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2000/07/24/000094946_99030406232959/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf#page=32 |chapter-format=PDF |name-list-style=amp}}
</ref>

Sharecropping agreements can be made fairly, as a form of [[tenant farming]] or [[sharefarming]] that has a variable rental payment, paid in [[arrears]]. There are three different types of contracts.<ref>Arthur F. Raper and Ira De A. Reid, ''Sharecroppers All'' (1941); Gavin Wright, ''Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy since the Civil War'' (1986).</ref>
#Workers can rent plots of land from the owner for a certain sum and keep the whole crop.
#Workers work on the land and earn a fixed wage from the land owner but keep some of the crop.
#No money changes hands but the worker and land owner each keep a share of the crop.

According to sociologist Edward Royce, "adherents of the [[Neoclassical economics|neoclassical]] approach" argued that sharecropping incentivized laborers by giving them a vested interest in the crop. American plantations were wary of this interest, as they felt that would lead to African Americans demanding rights of partnership. Many black laborers denied the unilateral authority that landowners hoped to achieve, further complicating relations between landowners and sharecroppers.<ref name="Temple University Press" />

Sharecropping may allow women to have access to [[arable land]], albeit not as owners, in places where ownership rights are vested only in men.<ref>Bruce, John W.- ''Country Profiles of Land Tenure: Africa, 1996'' (Lesotho, p. 221) Research Paper No. 130, December 1998, Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison accessed at [https://minds.wisconsin.edu/handle/1793/21869 UMN.edu] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011125185519/http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=1153|date=2001-11-25}} June 19, 2006</ref>

==Economic theories of share tenancy==
[[File:Mrs. Handley and some of her children, Walker County, Alabama, 8b35778.jpg | thumb|A sharecropper family in [[Walker County, Alabama|Walker County]], Alabama (c. 1937)]]The theory of share tenancy was long dominated by [[Alfred Marshall]]'s famous footnote in Book VI, Chapter X.14 of [[Principles of Economics (Marshall)|''Principles'']]<ref>{{cite book|author1=Alfred Marshall|title=Principles of Economics|url=http://www.econlib.org/library/Marshall/marP.html|year=1920|edition=8th|
publisher=London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd}}</ref> where he illustrated the inefficiency of agricultural share-contracting. [[Steven N.S. Cheung]] (1969),<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1086/466658|title=Transaction Costs, Risk Aversion, and the Choice of Contractual Arrangements|journal=Journal of Law & Economics|year=1969|first=Steven N S|last=Cheung|volume=12|issue=1|pages=23–42 |s2cid=154860968|url=http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/jlecono12&div=6&id=&page=|access-date=2009-06-14 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>  challenged this view, showing that with sufficient competition and in the absence of transaction costs, share tenancy will be equivalent to competitive labor markets and therefore efficient.<ref>Formalized in {{cite journal|title=Sharecropping, Production Externalities and the Theory of Contracts|journal=American Journal of Agricultural Economics|year=1979|first=James |last=Roumasset|volume=61|issue=4|pages=640–647  |jstor=1239911|doi=10.2307/1239911 }}</ref>

He also showed that in the presence of transaction costs, share-contracting may be preferred to either wage contracts or rent contracts—due to the mitigation of labor shirking and the provision of risk sharing. [[Joseph Stiglitz]] (1974,<ref>{{cite journal|title=Incentives and Risk Sharing in Sharecropping|journal=The Review of Economic Studies|year=1974|first=Joseph|last=Stiglitz|author-link=Joseph Stiglitz|volume=41|issue=2|pages=219–255 j|jstor=2296714|doi=10.2307/2296714|url=http://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d03/d0353.pdf|access-date=2019-07-06|archive-date=2019-04-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190427183920/http://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d03/d0353.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> 1988),<ref>{{cite journal|title=Principal And Agent|journal=Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School – Discussion Paper|year=1988|first=Joseph|last=Stiglitz|author-link=Joseph Stiglitz|issue=12|url=https://ideas.repec.org/p/fth/priwdp/12.html|access-date=2009-06-14 }}</ref>  suggested that if share tenancy is only a labor contract, then it is only pairwise-efficient and that land-to-the-tiller reform would improve social efficiency by removing the necessity for labor contracts in the first place.

Reid (1973),<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1017/S0022050700076476|title=Sharecropping As An Understandable Market Response: The Post-Bellum South|journal=[[The Journal of Economic History]]|date=March 1973|first=Joseph D. Jr. |last=Reid | author-link = Joseph D. Reid|volume=33|issue=1|pages=106–130  |jstor=2117145|s2cid=155056632 }}</ref> Murrel (1983),<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Economics of Sharing: A Transactions Cost Analysis of Contractual Choice in Farming|journal=[[The Bell Journal of Economics]]|date=Spring 1983|first=Peter |last=Murrell|volume=14|issue=1|pages=283–293  |jstor=3003555|doi=10.2307/3003555 }}</ref> Roumasset (1995)<ref>{{cite journal|title=The nature of the agricultural firm |journal=[[Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization]]|date=March 1995|first=James|last=Roumasset|volume=26|issue=2|pages=161–177 |doi= 10.1016/0167-2681(94)00007-2}}</ref>  and Allen and Lueck (2004)<ref>{{cite book | last = Allen | first = Douglas W. |author2=Dean Lueck  | title = The Nature of the Farm: Contracts, Risk, and Organization in Agriculture | publisher = [[MIT Press]] | year = 2004 | pages = 258 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=L2-BwHyuU3QC&q=nature+of+the+farm | isbn = 9780262511858 }}</ref> provided [[transaction cost]] theories of share-contracting, wherein tenancy is more of a partnership than a labor contract and both landlord and tenant provide multiple inputs. It has also been argued that the sharecropping institution can be explained by factors such as [[information asymmetry|informational asymmetry]] (Hallagan, 1978;<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.2307/3003586|title=Self-selection by contractual choice and the theory of sharecropping|journal=Bell Journal of Economics|year=1978|first=William |last=Hallagan|volume=9|issue=2|pages=344–354  |jstor=3003586}}</ref> Allen, 1982;<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.2307/3003473|title=On share contracts and screening|journal=Bell Journal of Economics|year=1982|first=Franklin |last=Allen|volume=13|issue=2|pages=541–547  |jstor=3003473}}</ref> Muthoo, 1998),<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/S0304-3878(98)00050-9|title=Renegotiation-proof tenurial contracts as screening mechanisms|journal=[[Journal of Development Economics]]|year=1998|first=Abhinay |last=Muthoo |author-link=Abhinay Muthoo|volume=56|pages=1–26 }}</ref> [[moral hazard]] (Reid, 1976;<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1086/450897|title=Sharecropping and agricultural uncertainty|journal=[[Economic Development and Cultural Change]]|year=1976|first=Joseph D. Jr. |last=Reid|volume=24|issue=3|pages=549–576  |jstor=1153005|s2cid=154402121}}</ref> Eswaran and Kotwal, 1985;<ref>{{cite journal|title=A theory of contractual structure in agriculture|journal=American Economic Review|year=1985|first=Mukesh |last=Eswaran|author2=Ashok Kotwal |volume=75|issue=3|pages=352–367  |jstor=1814805}}</ref> [[Maitreesh Ghatak|Ghatak]] and Pandey, 2000),<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/S0304-3878(00)00116-4|title=Contract choice in agriculture with joint moral hazard in effort and risk|journal=Journal of Development Economics|year=2000|first=Maitreesh|last=Ghatak|author-link=Maitreesh Ghatak|author2=Priyanka Pandey |volume=63|issue=2|pages=303–326  }}</ref> 
[[Time_preference#Temporal_discounting|intertemporal discounting]] (Roy and Serfes, 2001),<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/S0304-3878(00)00144-9|title=Intertemporal discounting and tenurial contracts|journal=Journal of Development Economics|year=2001|first=Jaideep |last=Roy|author2=Konstantinos Serfes  |volume=64|issue=2|pages=417–436}}</ref> price fluctuations (Sen, 2011)<ref>{{cite journal|last=Sen|first=Debapriya|year=2011|title=A theory of sharecropping: the role of price behavior and imperfect competition|url=https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/14898/1/MPRA_paper_14898.pdf|journal=[[Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization]]|volume=80|issue=1|pages=181–199|doi=10.1016/j.jebo.2011.03.006|s2cid=191253 }}<!--https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/14898/1/MPRA_paper_14898.pdf--></ref> or [[limited liability]] (Shetty, 1988;<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/0304-3878(88)90068-5|title=Limited liability, wealth differences, and the tenancy ladder in agrarian economies|journal=Journal of Development Economics|year=1988|first=Sudhir |last=Shetty|volume=29|pages=1–22  }}</ref> [[Kaushik Basu|Basu]], 1992;<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/0304-3878(92)90026-6|title=Limited liability and the existence of share tenancy|journal=Journal of Development Economics|year=1992|first=Kaushik |last=Basu|author-link=Kaushik Basu|volume=38|pages=203–220 |url=http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/295593/files/WP61.pdf}}<!--http://collections.unu.edu/view/UNU:5342--></ref> Sengupta, 1997;<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/S0304-3878(96)00444-0|title=Limited liability, moral hazard and share tenancy|journal=Journal of Development Economics|year=1997|first=Kunal |last=Sengupta|volume=52|issue=2|pages=393–407 }}</ref> Ray and Singh, 2001).<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/S0304-3878(01)00163-8|title=Limited liability, contractual choice and the tenancy ladder|journal=Journal of Development Economics|year=2001|first=Tridip |last=Ray|author2=Nirvikar Singh |volume=66|pages=289–303}}</ref>

==See also==
{{col div|colwidth=30em}}
*[[Coolie]]
*[[Convict lease]]
*[[Peonage]]
*[[Rent-seeking]]
*[[Rural tenancy]]
*[[Sharefarming]]
*[[Sharemilking]]
*[[Tenant farmer]]
*[[Wage slavery]]
{{Div col end}}

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite journal |last1=Adams |first1=Jane |first2=D. |last2=Gorton |title=This Land Ain't My Land: The Eviction of Sharecroppers by the Farm Security Administration |journal=Agricultural History |volume=83 |issue=3 |year=2009 |pages=323–51 |doi=10.3098/ah.2009.83.3.323 }}
*{{cite book |last1=Agee |first1=James |first2=Walker |last2=Evans |year=1941 |title=Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families |location=Boston |publisher=Houghton Mifflin }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Allen |first1=D. W. |first2=D. |last2=Lueck |title=Contract Choice in Modern Agriculture: Cash Rent versus Cropshare |journal=Journal of Law and Economics |year=1992 |volume=35 |issue= 2|pages=397–426 |doi= 10.1086/467260|s2cid=153707520 }}
*{{cite web|last=Barbagallo|first=Tricia|url=http://www.archives.nysed.gov/apt/magazine/archivesmag_summer05.pdf|title=Black Beach: The Mucklands of Canastota, New York|date=June 1, 2005|access-date=2008-06-04|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131113180442/http://www.archives.nysed.gov/apt/magazine/archivesmag_summer05.pdf|archive-date=November 13, 2013}}
*{{cite book |last=Davis |first=Ronald L. F. |title=Good and Faithful Labor: From Slavery to Sharecropping in the Natchez District, 1860–1890 |url=https://archive.org/details/goodfaithfullabo0000davi |url-access=registration |location=Westport, Connecticut |publisher=Greenwood Press |year=1982 |isbn=0-313-23134-6 }}
*{{cite journal |last=Ferleger |first=Louis |title=Sharecropping Contracts in the Late-Nineteenth-Century South |journal=Agricultural History |volume=67 |issue=3 |year=1993 |pages=31–46 |jstor=3744228 }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Garrett |first1=Martin A. |first2=Zhenhui |last2=Xu |title=The Efficiency of Sharecropping: Evidence from the Postbellum South |journal=Southern Economic Journal |volume=69 |year=2003 |issue=3 |pages=578–595 |doi=10.1002/j.2325-8012.2003.tb00514.x }}; argues, "empirical results refute the long-held notion that sharecropping is inefficient." 
*{{cite book |last=Grubbs |first=Donald H. |title=Cry from the Cotton: The Southern Tenant Farmer's Union and the New Deal |year=1971 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=0-8078-1156-4 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/cryfromcottonsou0000grub }}
*{{cite book |last=Hurt |first=R. Douglas Hurt |title=African American Life in the Rural South, 1900–1950 |year=2003 |publisher=University of Missouri Press |isbn=0-8262-1471-1 }}
*{{cite journal |last=Liebowitz |first=Jonathan J. |title=Tenants, Sharecroppers, and the French Agricultural Depression of the Late Nineteenth Century |journal=Journal of Interdisciplinary History |volume=19 |issue=3 |year=1989 |pages=429–445 |jstor=204363 |doi=10.2307/204363 }}
*{{cite journal |last=Reid |first=Joseph D. Jr. |title=Sharecropping in History and Theory |journal=Agricultural History |volume=49 |issue=2 |year=1975 |pages=426–440 |jstor=3741281 }}
*{{cite web |last=Roll |first=Jarod |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110110173607/http://southernspaces.org/2010/out-yonder-road-working-class-self-representation-and-1939-roadside-demonstration-southeast-mis |archive-date=January 10, 2011 |url=http://southernspaces.org/2010/out-yonder-road-working-class-self-representation-and-1939-roadside-demonstration-southeast-mis |title=Out Yonder on the Road": Working Class Self-Representation and the 1939 Roadside Demonstration in Southeast Missouri |work=Southern Spaces |date=March 16, 2010 }}
*{{cite journal |last=Shaban |first=R. A. |title=Testing Between Competing Models of Sharecropping |journal=Journal of Political Economy |year=1987 |volume=95 |issue=5 |pages=893–920 |doi=10.1086/261495 |s2cid=55141070 }}
*{{cite book |last=Singh |first=N. |chapter=Theories of Sharecropping |editor-first=P. |editor-last=Bardhan |title=The Economic Theory of Agrarian Institutions |year=1989 |pages=33–72 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=0-19-828619-8 }}
*{{cite journal |last=Southworth |first=Caleb |title=Aid to Sharecroppers: How Agrarian Class Structure and Tenant-Farmer Politics Influenced Federal Relief in the South, 1933–1935 |journal=Social Science History |volume=26 |issue=1 |year=2002 |pages=33–70 }}
*{{cite journal |last=Stiglitz |first=J. |title=Incentives and Risk Sharing in Share Cropping |journal=Review of Economic Studies |year=1974 |volume=41 |issue=2 |pages=219–255 |doi=10.2307/2296714 |jstor=2296714 |url=http://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d03/d0353.pdf |access-date=2019-07-06 |archive-date=2019-04-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190427183920/http://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d03/d0353.pdf |url-status=dead }}
*{{cite journal|jstor=1189524|title=Farm Tenancy Distribution and Trends in the United States|journal=Law and Contemporary Problems|volume=4|issue=4|pages=424–433|last1=Turner|first1=Howard A.|year=1937|doi=10.2307/1189524|url=https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/lcp/vol4/iss4/2|url-access=subscription}}<!--https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/lcp/vol4/iss4/2-->
*{{cite journal |last=Virts |first=Nancy |title=The Efficiency of Southern Tenant Plantations, 1900–1945 |journal=Journal of Economic History |volume=51 |issue=2 |year=1991 |pages=385–395 |jstor=2122582 |doi=10.1017/S0022050700039012 |s2cid=154991172 }}
*{{cite book |last=Wayne |first=Michael |title=The Reshaping of Plantation Society: The Natchez District, 1860–1880 |url=https://archive.org/details/reshapingofplant0000wayn |url-access=registration |location=Baton Rouge, Louisiana |publisher=Louisiana State University Press |year=1983 |isbn=0-8071-1050-7 }}

==External links==
*{{Commonscatinline|Sharecropping}}
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-I5aX7qZtQ&t=102s King Cotton's Slaves], 1936 newsreel by ''[[The March of Time]]'' about landless Southern farmers

{{Plantation agriculture in the Southeastern United States}}
{{Horticulture and gardening}}
{{Portal bar|Agriculture and agronomy}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Crops]]
[[Category:Agricultural labor]]
[[Category:Landowners]]
[[Category:Real property law]]
[[Category:Land tenure]]