By Our Hands Alone

ONE TROUBLE ONTO ANOTHER

Men generally rose before sunrise to work in the fields where they might stay until dusk with only a short break at midday to eat.  Often, their families joined them in the fields to plant seed, pull weeds, and bring in the crop.   Men were sometimes fortunate enough to share the work burden with mules or horses which pulled plows and wagons and helped to haul wood and supplies. 

Most rural farmers did not have money to buy anything let alone equipment such as a tractor.  Indeed, most worked as tenant farmers or share croppers renting from a landowner in exchange for a share in the crop they hoped to raise.  Tenant farmers typically used their own tools and animals and therefore only had to give twenty-five percent of the crop profit to the landholder.  Sharecroppers were only able to provide their labor and therefore had to give the landowner fifty percent of the crop.  Both sharecroppers and tenant farmers paid for seeds, fertilizer, and food out of their part of the profits.  If their land yielded few crops, did not bring a good price at market, or failed entirely, tenants and sharecroppers became indebted to the landowner.  This cycle of debt, dependence, and poverty was nearly impossible to break.  Sociologist Edwin R. Embree reported in a 1936 article on southern tenancy, “…over one third of all tenants in the South and over half of the Negro tenants are in the lowest category of poverty and dependence.”