Final answer:
Henry Adams saw sharecropping as exploitative, trapping freed people in debt and economic dependence, with few differences from slavery.
Step-by-step explanation:
Henry Adams viewed the system of sharecropping unfavorably, regarding it as an exploitative arrangement that trapped newly freed people and some poor white citizens in a cycle of debt and dependency similar to slavery.
Sharecroppers paid their rent with a portion of their crops, but high interest payments and a hierarchy of debt repayment often left them with little to nothing after harvest, furthering their poverty and preventing any chance of gaining economic independence.
Furthermore, sharecropping ensured that freed people could not attain independent livelihoods and led to the South remaining economically underdeveloped.