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Wealthy Southerners resisted Reconstruction in many ways, but one of the main ways was by implementing the sharecropping system. After the Civil War, many landowners in the South began renting land to former slaves and poor whites who could not afford to buy their own land. These renters were required to pay a portion of their crops to the landowners as rent, which often left them in a cycle of debt and poverty. This system helped the wealthy Southerners maintain their economic and political power in the region.