(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION RECONSTRUCTION) Three Sharecroppers

Sale 2271 - Lot 83

Price Realized: $ 960

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600

(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION--RECONSTRUCTION.) Three Sharecroppers' Contracts for Mrs. D.R. Allen of the Fulmer Plantation. Partially printed form, accomplished by hand, signed with the "X" of each tenant farmer. Single leaves, 8 x 11 inches; creases where folded. Tunica, Mississippi, 1907-1909

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Sharecropper contracts such as these show how plantation owners were able to parcel out pieces of the land to individual black farmers that were once entirely worked by large crews of slaves. The only difference between these "formal" contracts and those of the 1870's is their legal language. Other than that, they are identical, if not worse because of the lack of oversight now by institutions like the Freedmen's Bureau. Clauses that not only stipulated that the tenant farmer had to buy his food and supplies from the Plantation owner, but were he to do otherwise, a penalty of 25% of whatever they spent had to be paid to the land owner. The tenant had to use the Donnell cotton gin provided, and they had to sell whatever they grew to the land owner.