The Black Codes are created after the Civil War with the intention of limiting the rights of black people. The laws include required permits for black people who want to work in sectors other than agricultural labor, bans on raising their own crops, and required permission to travel. These laws were repealed in 1866.
The age of post-war Reconstruction begins. Indebted to landowners, formerly enslaved persons and their descendants continue to work in the fields.
The systems of tenant farming and sharecropping emerge. Tenant farmers typically paid landowners for the right to grow crops on a certain piece of property. In addition to having some cash to pay rent, they also generally owned some livestock and tools needed for successful farming.
Sharecroppers, on the other hand, were more impoverished than tenant farmers. With few resources and little or no cash, sharecroppers agree to farm a certain plot of land in exchange for a share of the crops they raise. The amount of crops the sharecropper gave over to the landowner depended on the agreement with the landowner.
