contented save when disturbed by political movements. They then tried all
systems of working on shares in the cotton districts; but this was finally
abandoned because the planters in some cases were not able to advance the
Negro tenant supplies, pending the growth of the crop, and some found the
Negro too indifferent and lazy to make the partnership desirable. Then
came the renting system which during the Reconstruction period was general
in the cotton districts. This system threw the tenant on his own
responsibility and frequently made him the victim of his own ignorance and
the rapacity of the white man. As exorbitant prices were charged for rent,
usually six to ten dollars an acre for land worth fifteen to thirty
dollars an acre, the Negro tenant not only did not accumulate anything but
had reason to rejoice at the end of the year, if he found himself out of
debt.[9]

Along with this went the credit system which furnished the capstone of the
economic structure so harmful to the Negro tenant. This system made the
Negroes dependent for their living on an advance of supplies of food,
clothing or tools during the year, secured by a lien on the crop when
harvested. As the Negroes had no chance to learn business methods during
the days of slavery, they fell a prey to a class of loan sharks, harpies
and vampires, who established stores everywhere to extort from these
ignorant tenants by the mischievous credit system their whole income
before their crops could be gathered.[10] Some planters who sympathized
with the Negroes brought forward the scheme of protecting them by
advancing certain necessities at more reasonable prices. As the planter
himself, however, was subject to usury, the scheme did not give much
relief. The Negroes' crop, therefore, when gathered went either to the
merchant or to the planter to pay the rent; for the merchant's supplies
were secured by a mortgage on the tenant's personal property and a pledge
of the growing crop. This often prevented Negro laborers in the employ of
black tenants from getting their wages at the end of the year, for,
although the laborer had also a lien on the growing crop, the merchant and
the planter usually had theirs recorded first and secured thereby the
support of the law to force the payment of their claims. The Negro tenant
then began the year with three mortgages, covering all he owned, his labor
for the coming year and all he expected to acquire during that
twelvemonth.