In this week’s blog posts, many of you showed interest in how sharecropping did or did not measure up to freedpeople’s interests and desires. Stephanie argues that “from its inception, sharecropping only minimally met the desires of former slaves.” In theory, sharecropping did – albeit minimally – align with freedpeople’s desire to maintain autonomy over their labor and families. However, according to Alex, the reality of sharecropping as it was lived and practiced “completely contradicted the freedman’s aspiration to own and control his own land.”
A post by Ross brings up an interesting question about sharecropping. He writes,
I am not sure that the progress made during reconstruction would have been accomplished, if blacks would have been given land and total autonomy, or if planters had won out and instituted a total wage driven system of labor.
Whether or not sharecropping was in line with the desires of freedpeople, could we still consider sharecropping a “progressive” development for the black community – or for the South as a whole? By what (or whose) standard would you evaluate progress?