The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

Sharecropping and the Crop-Lien System 421

Reconstruction, in the literal sense of the word, was
accomplished chiefly at the expense of the standard of
living of the producing classes. The crop-lien system
and the small storekeeper were only agents of an eco-
nomic process dictated by national, perhaps even
worldwide, conditions.
Compared with the rest of the country, progress
was slow. Just before the Civil War cotton harvests
averaged about 4 million bales. During the conflict,
output fell to about half a million, and the former
Confederate states did not enjoy a 4-million-bale year
again until 1870. In contrast, national wheat produc-
tion in 1859 was 175 million bushels and in 1878,
449 million. About 7,000 miles of railroad were built
in the South between 1865 and 1879; in the rest of
the nation nearly 45,000 miles of track were laid.
But in the late 1870s, cotton production revived.
It soon regained, and thereafter long retained, its title
as “king” of the southern economy. This was true in
large measure because of the crop-lien system.

Gulf of

Mexico

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

LOUISIANA

TEXAS

ARKANSAS

MISSISSIPPI

ALABAMA

FLORIDA

GEORGIA

SOUTH

CAROLINA

NORTH

CAROLINA

VIRGINIA

TENNESSEE

35%– 80%

20%–34%

13%–19%

0%–12%

Sharecropped farms (by county)

Sharecropping, 1880Sharecropping became especially common in areas outside of the cotton belt—eastern Texas, upland Alabama, and
North Carolina.

The South made important gains in manufactur-

ing after the war. The tobacco industry, stimulated by

the sudden popularity of the cigarette, expanded

rapidly. Virginia and North Carolina tobacco towns

like Richmond, Lynchburg, and Durham flourished.

The exploitation of the coal and iron deposits of

northeastern Alabama in the early 1870s made a

boomtown of Birmingham. The manufacture of cot-

ton cloth increased, productive capacity nearly dou-

bling between 1865 and 1880. Yet the mills of

Massachusetts alone had eight times the capacity of the

entire South in 1880. Despite the increases, the

South’s share of the national output of manufactured

goods declined sharply during the Reconstruction era.

A Sharecrop Contractat

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Five Generations of a Slave Familyat

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