Who benefited least from a sharecropping arrangement?
1 Answer
The people farming the land under the sharecropping arrangement.
Explanation:
The land owner got 50% of the profits without effort or risk.
The people sharecropping ( usually freed slaves and a few poor whites) did all of the work. The sharecroppers often had to borrow money for the seed and fertilizer to plant the crops. The interest rate charged was guaranteed to keep them poor regardless of their hard work and good harvests.
If the crop failed ( which is a risk in farming) the share croppers could not pay off the loan for the seed. The sharecroppers then were in debt to the landowner at the start of the next growing season. The result was that the sharecropper though free were enslaved to the landowner by the debt.
The sharecroppers did all of the work took all of the risks and got very little in return.
