Multiple choice

After the Civil War, the sharecropping system emerged in the South primarily as a way to

  1. Diversify agricultural production

  2. provide a labor supply to plantation owners

  3. give forty acres of land to freedmen

  4. guarantee economic equality for African Americans

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Sharecropping emerged as a way for plantation owners to maintain a labor force after the abolition of slavery. Since freedmen lacked capital and landowners lacked cash to pay wages, the system allowed landowners to keep workers on the land in exchange for a share of the crop.