who were farmers who kept a small portion of their crops & gave the rest to the landowners
Sharecropping
title: Sharecropping text: early 1940s, and the average plantation fell into bankruptcy about every 20 years. It is against this backdrop that the wealthiest owners maintained their concentrated ownership of the land. Croppers were assigned a plot of land to work, and in exchange owed the owner a share of the crop at the end of the season, usually one half. The owner provided the tools and farm animals. Farmers who owned their own mule and plow were at a higher stage, and were called tenant farmers: They paid the landowner less, usually only a third of each crop. In both cases, the title: Çift-Hane text: Çift-Hane The çift-hane system was the basic unit of agrarian land holding and taxation in the Ottoman Empire from its beginning. The pre-modern Ottoman system of land tenure was based on the distribution of land between publicly owned lands, "miri" and privately owned lands "mülk", and the majority of the arable land was "miri", especially grain-producing land. Peasants were the vast majority of the empire, and they worked as farmers on land designated as "miri", relying heavily on wheat-barley production for their subsistence. The peasant household had been the basic form of agrarian production in much of the land ruled title: Colonus (person) text: Colonus (person) In the late Roman Empire and the Early Middle Ages a colonus (plural: "coloni") was a tenant farmer. Known collectively as the "colonate", these farmers operated as sharecroppers, paying landowners with a portion of their crops in exchange for use of their farmlands. The "coloni"'s tenant-landlord relationship eventually degraded into one of debt and dependence. As a result, the "colonus" system became a new type of land tenancy, placing the occupants in a state between freedom and slavery. In Italy, much of the agricultural land was leased to tenants. There was a concept in place that allowed the title: History of agriculture in the United States text: and black, to earn a living from land owned by someone else. The landowner provided land, housing, tools and seed, and perhaps a mule, and a local merchant provided food and supplies on credit. At harvest time the sharecropper received a share of the crop (from one-third to one-half, with the landowner taking the rest). The cropper used his share to pay off his debt to the merchant. The system started with blacks when large plantations were subdivided. By the 1880s, white farmers also became sharecroppers. The system was distinct from that of the tenant farmer, who rented the land, title: Tenant farmer text: portion (often half) of the crop he raises and who brings little to the operation besides his family labor; the landlord usually furnishing working stock, tools, fertilizer, housing, fuel, and seed, and often providing regular advice and oversight. Tenant farming was historically a step on the "agricultural ladder" from hired hand or sharecropper taken by young farmers as they accumulated enough experience and capital to buy land (or buy out their siblings when a farm was inherited). In the 1920s, many came from Japan to the West Coast states. Tenant farmers often had agricultural managers who supervised their activities. In