His wage, however, is
paid not in cash but in a stipulated share of the crop. From this
share he must pay for the supplies received and interest thereon. This
method, however, has proved to be a mutually unsatisfactory
arrangement and is usually limited to hard pressed owners of poor
land.
The larger number of the negro farmers are tenants on shares or
metayers. They work the land on their own responsibility, and this
degree of independence appeals to them. They pay a stipulated portion
of the crop as rent. If they possess some capital and the rental is
fair, this arrangement proves satisfactory. But as very few negro
metayers possess the needed capital, they resort to a system of
crop-lienage under which a local retail merchant advances the
necessary supplies and obtains a mortgage on the prospective crop.
Many negro farmers, however, have achieved the independence of cash
renters, assuming complete control of their crops and the disposition
of their time. And finally, 241,000 negro farmers are landowners.[14]
By 1910 nearly 900,000 negroes had achieved some degree of rural
economic stability.
The negro has not been so fortunate in his attempts to make a place
for himself in the industrial world. The drift to the cities began
soon after emancipation. During the first decade, the dissatisfaction
with the landlordism which then prevailed, seconded by the demand for
unskilled labor in the rapidly growing cities, drew the negroes from
the land in such considerable numbers that the landowners were induced
to make more liberal terms to keep the laborers on their farms.
Pages:
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67