Final answer:
Farmers prevented ex-enslaved people from acquiring land to maintain economic control and preserve the social hierarchy, resulting in black farmers becoming sharecroppers in a system of debt and dependence.
Step-by-step explanation:
Most farmers tried to prevent ex-enslaved people from acquiring their own land because it threatened the economic and social order that benefitted the white landowners. After the Civil War, many black farmers who were skilled and desirous of farming faced significant obstacles as whites sought to keep hold of their land. Limited opportunities for the freedmen to purchase land meant that they often had to turn to sharecropping, an exploitative system where they would rent land and pay a portion of their crops as rent, often leading to a cycle of debt and limiting their ability to gain economic independence. In some cases, attempts at land redistribution, like the Sea Islands experiment, ended with the freedmen losing their land and returning to work for their former owners. The pattern of land ownership and agricultural labor in the South severely restricted the economic progress and continued to enforce a strict racial hierarchy.