Final answer:
Yes, sharecropping became a common system in the South after slavery ended, trapping many freed people and poor whites in a cycle of debt and poverty. The landlords retained significant advantages under this system, with the laborers bearing most of the risk in the cash crop-dominated Southern economy.
Step-by-step explanation:
Yes, after slavery was abolished in the United States, sharecropping became a prevalent way of life in the Southern states. This practice involved freed people and landless White citizens renting land from plantation owners and paying their rent in the form of crops, often as much as half of their harvest.
Sharecropping was heavily favored towards the landlords, ensuring that freed people could not achieve independent livelihoods and were frequently caught in a cycle of debt and poverty.
During Reconstruction, while some efforts were made to reintegrate the former Confederate states back into the Union as equal members, the system of sharecropping contributed to ongoing economic struggles.
With the majority of farmers unable to afford their own land, the South continued as an agrarian society with cotton and other cash crops at the center of its economy.
The crop-lien system, in which sharecroppers bought seed and supplies on credit, only exacerbated their situation. The Southern courts established a hierarchy for payment at harvest time, placing the laborer at the lowest rank, with adequacy only after other parties, including merchants and landlords, were satisfied.
This structure further entangled sharecroppers in poverty and made it exceedingly difficult for them to rise above their circumstances.