A farming system in which farmers worked land owned by others in exchange for a share of the crop.

• A. Sharecropping
• B. Tenant Farming
• C. Freedmen's Bureau
• D. Black Codes

Answer: (A)

Sharecropping is a farming arrangement where the landowner lets someone farm their land in exchange for a portion of the harvest. The worker provides the labor to plant, tend, and harvest, and in return receives a share of the crop—often about half—while the rest goes to the landowner as payment for using the land and sometimes for supplies. This system spread in the Southern United States after the Civil War because it required little cash up front and could be arranged with freed people and poor whites. Yet it often trapped workers in debt, since many borrowed seeds, tools, or provisions on credit and found the value of their harvest insufficient to repay those loans. Tenant farming is similar in that it involves farming land owned by someone else, but the key difference is that the tenant usually pays cash rent or a fixed amount for the use of the land and then keeps the remaining crops, rather than sharing the harvest. The Freedmen's Bureau and Black Codes relate to postwar government programs and laws about rights and labor, not the specific farming arrangement described.