Nothing but Freedom by Eric Foner discusses the aftermath of emancipation and the lives of the newly freed people in the American South, in Haiti, and the British West Indies. In his book, Foner addressed the issue of sharecropping and the response the newly freed men had to this form of labor. While the former slaves sought freedom and the ability to work for themselves, it is evident that they were willing to compromise. In class we discussed the importance the black population placed on having their own land and on being able to control their own labor and their own time. The planter class on the other class was primarily interested in maintaining the labor force and maintaining the production of their crops. In this situation the former slaves have the disadvantage and it was harder for them to obtain what they wanted. In order to survive as free people, the former slaves who could not obtain land had the option of working for wages or engaging in sharecropping. While sharecropping is not the ideal form of labor and sustenance, the newly freed people are not completely opposed to engage in this from of labor and they did not view it as opposed to their interests.
If the former slaves accepted to work for wages under a former master or any other planter they would be subject to their conditions and the low pay that the planters would provide. A sharecropping agreement “afforded agricultural laborers more control over their own time, labor, and family arrangements, and more hope of economic advancement, than many other modes of labor organization” (45). When working under the sharecropping system, those working the land did not directly depend on their former masters when performing the labor needed. In addition, since they were the ones in the partnership that actually knew how to grow the crop they were trying to sell; they had an advantage over the plantation owner. The freed people also had something they had never had before, the control and of their families. In such an arrangement, the plantation owners did not have the right to sell parts of families like they often did under the institution of slavery.
While the freed people did not have full control over the land they worked, their new status was different enough from slavery that it bothered the planters. Under this arrangement, the black population was considered a partner, even if not an equal one. According to the planters, sharecropping made the “laborers too independent” and provided them the “right to be consulted” in matters of the crops (45). While this might not seem that significant because they still depended on the land of others to survive, these new rights were in accordance with their desire to leave the system of slavery behind ad begin to work for themselves.
The newfound degree of control that the former slaves had on the planter class is evinced in the rice plantations from North Carolina to upper Florida. Here, the workers refused to work for wages and were so confident in the need the land owners had for them that they “’laughed at threats if dismissal’” since there were “’any other number of places where they [could] go’” (90). In additions the former slaves expected to have land where they could grow their own food. They also refused to be overseen directly by another man in charge and wanted full control of the crops. The planter was only expected to receive a portion of the earnings but he was not allowed to meddle with the plantation process (87). The planters had to acquiesce to the demands in order to keep the production going. Even if sharecropping did not turn out to be the best system for the former slaves, the fact is that they had some of the rights they were seeking after emancipation. At least in the beginning, this system of labor met some of their interests and the former slaves were on track to obtain the ultimate goasl of land and complete disentanglement from the planter class.