Sharecropping was popular among Freedmen and caused many of them to continue to stay in the South when slavery was abolished.
Sharecropping is when the owner of the land, who were white plantation owners during this time, would give out parts of their land to rent in return for getting a portion of the crops that were being grown on the land. This was a way for both white and black farmers to obtain money.
A lot of former slaves had turned to sharecropping because they had expertise in farming. They knew that if they went to the North, it would be hard to find jobs because they did not know anything about factory or industry work. The North was focused on industrialization, while the South was focused on agriculture, so many former slaves stayed tied to what they were familiar with.