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54-632: The Chisolm Massacre occurred on April 29, 1877 in Kemper County, Mississippi , less than a month after the Reconstruction era was brought to a close. A judge and former sheriff named William Chisolm was accused of killing sheriff John Gully, a member of the Democratic Party, and was being held in the local jail. Also held there in protective custody were Chisolm's son, daughter, and two of his friends. A mob of around 300 Ku Klux Klan members stormed

108-507: A Peep at Radical Rule in Mississippi . Kemper County, Mississippi Kemper County is a county located on the central eastern border of the U.S. state of Mississippi . As of the 2020 census , the population was 8,988. Its county seat is De Kalb . The county is named in honor of Reuben Kemper . The county is part of the Meridian , MS Micropolitan Statistical Area . In 2010

162-456: A distinction between centralized sharecropping found on cotton plantations and the decentralized sharecropping with other crops. The former is characterized by long lasting tenure. Tenants are tied to the landlord through the plantation store . This form of tenure tends to be replaced by paid salaries as markets penetrate. Decentralized sharecropping involves virtually no role for the landlord: plots are scattered, peasants manage their own labor and

216-463: A great deal of land but no liquid assets to pay for labor. They also maintained the "belief that gangs afforded the most efficient means of labor organization", something nearly all formerly enslaved people resisted. Preferring "to organize themselves into kin groups", as well as "minimize chances for white male-black female contact by removing their female kin from work environments supervised closely by whites", black southerners were "determined to resist

270-409: A household in the county was $ 23,998, and the median income for a family was $ 30,248. Males had a median income of $ 24,431 versus $ 18,199 for females. The per capita income for the county was $ 11,985. About 21.20% of families and 26.00% of the population were below the poverty line , including 35.30% of those under age 18 and 26.70% of those age 65 or over. Kemper County is within the service area of

324-675: A posse, he killed a white constable and was quickly lynched by the other whites. As reported by The New York Times , Not satisfied with the punishment of this man, the whites immediately set out to strike terror into the negroes, who had been getting defiant of late. They found two sons of Simpson and lynched them, filling their bodies with bullets. Two other negroes who had behaved defiantly were treated in similar fashion. Whites worried about blacks gathering to take revenge at Wahalak, where they had already been abused by lynchings. Local authorities called for state militia. Their commanding officer took his troops away from Wahalak, although there

378-715: A significant institution in many states for decades following the Civil War. By the early 1930s, there were 5.5 million white tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and mixed cropping/laborers in the United States; and 3 million Blacks. In Tennessee, sharecroppers operated approximately one-third of all farm units in the state in the 1930s, with white people making up two thirds or more of the sharecroppers. In Mississippi, by 1900, 36% of all white farmers were tenants or sharecroppers, while 85% of black farmers were. In Georgia, fewer than 16,000 farms were operated by black owners in 1910, while, at

432-429: A variable rental payment, paid in arrears . There are three different types of contracts. According to sociologist Edward Royce, "adherents of the neoclassical approach" argued that sharecropping incentivized laborers by giving them a vested interest in the crop. American plantations were wary of this interest, as they felt that would lead to African Americans demanding rights of partnership. Many black laborers denied

486-502: Is located in Kemper County in the town of Scooba , at the junction of US 45 and Mississippi Highway 16 . In the wake of the county's founding, Abel Mastin Key served as the first circuit clerk. Land in the area was developed in the 19th century by white planters for cotton cultivation using enslaved African Americans. Blacks have comprised the majority of the county population since before

540-404: Is not as exploitative as it is often perceived. John Heath and Hans P. Binswanger write that "evidence from around the world suggests that sharecropping is often a way for differently endowed enterprises to pool resources to mutual benefit, overcoming credit restraints and helping to manage risk." Sharecropping agreements can be made fairly, as a form of tenant farming or sharefarming that has

594-635: The American Civil War . The county continues to be largely rural. After the American Civil War and Reconstruction , racial violence increased as whites struggled to regain power over the majority population of freedmen and to suppress their voting. In the period from 1877 to 1950, Kemper County had 24 documented lynchings of African Americans , the third-highest of Mississippi counties. Hinds and Leflore counties had 29 and 48 lynchings, respectively, in this period. This form of racial terrorism

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648-742: The Catalan masoveria , the Castilian mediero , the Slavic połownictwo and izdolshchina, the Italian mezzadria , and the Islamic system of muzara‘a (المزارعة), are examples of legal systems that have supported sharecropping. Under a sharecropping system, landowners provided a share of land to be worked by the sharecropper, and usually provided other necessities such as housing, tools, seed, or working animals . Local merchants usually provide food and other supplies to

702-633: The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and were inadmissible at trial. The peak of population in the rural county was in 1930. Mechanization of agriculture decreased the need for farm labor. From 1940 to 1970, the population declined markedly, as may be seen on the table below, as people moved to other areas for work. This was also the period of the second wave of the Great Migration , when 5 million African Americans moved out of

756-616: The East Mississippi Community College system. The main campus of EMCC, including the college system's administrative headquarters, is in the Scooba Campus in Scooba . The county is governed by a five-member elected Board of Supervisors, who are elected from single-member districts. The County Sheriff, Chancery Clerk, Circuit Clerk, and Tax Assessor are also elected to office. Kemper County generally votes for candidates of

810-476: The Western United States during World War II . By the end of the 1960s, sharecropping had disappeared in the United States. About two-thirds of sharecroppers were white, the rest black. Sharecroppers, the poorest of the poor, organized for better conditions. The racially integrated Southern Tenant Farmers Union made gains for sharecroppers in the 1930s. Sharecropping had diminished in the 1940s due to

864-427: The crop lien , became closely associated with sharecropping. Under this system, a planter or merchant extended a line of credit to the sharecropper while taking the year's crop as collateral. The sharecropper could then draw food and supplies all year long. When the crop was harvested, the planter or merchants who held the lien sold the harvest for the sharecropper and settled the debt. Sociologist Jeffery M. Paige made

918-467: The 1960s, generous subsidies to white farmers meant that most farmers could afford to work their entire farms, and sharecropping faded out. The arrangement has reappeared in other African countries in modern times, including Ghana and Zimbabwe . Economic historian Pius S. Nyambara argued that Eurocentric historiographical devices such as "feudalism" or "slavery" often qualified by weak prefixes like "semi-" or "quasi-" are not helpful in understanding

972-612: The Democratic Party; the Republican presidential nominee has won it only four times in the past century. In 2010, the Mississippi Public Service Commission approved the construction of a lignite coal plant in Kemper County to be financed by electricity customers in twenty-three southeastern Mississippi counties being served by Mississippi Power Company . It is designed as a model project to use gasification and carbon-capture technologies at this scale. The plant

1026-518: The Great Depression, farm mechanization, and other factors. Sharecropping may have been harmful to tenants, with many cases of high interest rates, unpredictable harvests, and unscrupulous landlords and merchants often keeping tenant farm families severely indebted. The debt was often compounded year on year leaving the cropper vulnerable to intimidation and shortchanging. Nevertheless, it appeared to be inevitable, with no serious alternative unless

1080-537: The Mississippi Public Service Commission approved construction of the Kemper Project , designed to use "clean coal" to produce electricity for 23 counties in the eastern part of the state. As of February 2017 , it was not completed and had cost overruns. It is designed as a model project to use gasification and carbon-capture technologies at this scale. East Mississippi Community College

1134-606: The South to the North and especially to the West Coast, where the defense industry had many jobs, beginning during World War II. According to the U.S. Census Bureau , the county has a total area of 767 square miles (1,990 km ), of which 766 square miles (1,980 km ) is land and 0.8 square miles (2.1 km ) (0.1%) is water. As of the 2020 United States Census , there were 8,988 people, 3,611 households, and 2,201 families residing in

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1188-531: The U.S. increased during the Great Depression with the creation of tenant farmers following the failure of many small farms throughout the Dustbowl . Traditional sharecropping declined after mechanization of farm work became economical beginning in the late 1930s and early 1940s. As a result, many sharecroppers were forced off the farms, and migrated to cities to work in factories, or became migrant workers in

1242-539: The United States originated in the Natchez District , roughly centered in Adams County, Mississippi with its county seat, Natchez . After the war, plantations and other lands throughout the South were seized by the federal government. In January 1865, General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Orders No. 15 , which announced that he would temporarily grant newly freed families 40 acres of this seized land on

1296-569: The antecedents and functions of sharecropping in Africa. Prior to the Civil War, sharecropping is known to have existed in Mississippi and is believed to have been in place in Tennessee . However, it was not until the economic upheaval caused by the American Civil War and the end of slavery during and after Reconstruction that it became widespread in the South. It is theorized that sharecropping in

1350-399: The county. As of the 2010 United States Census , there were 10,456 people living in the county. 60.1% were Black or African American , 35.3% White , 3.7% Native American , 0.1% Asian , 0.1% of some other race and 0.7% of two or more races . 0.5% were Hispanic or Latino (of any race). As of the census of 2000, there were 10,453 people, 3,909 households, and 2,787 families living in

1404-416: The county. The population density was 14 people per square mile (5.4 people/km ). There were 4,533 housing units at an average density of 6 units per square mile (2.3 units/km ). The racial makeup of the county was 58.13% Black or African American , 39.03% White , 2.06% Native American , 0.08% Asian , 0.03% Pacific Islander , 0.11% from other races , and 0.57% from two or more races. 0.73% of

1458-448: The cropper received half of cash paid for the crop on his parcel. Sharecroppers also often received their farming tools and all other goods from the landowner they were contracted with. Landowners dictated decisions relating to the crop mix, and sharecroppers were often in agreements to sell their portion of the crop back to the landowner, thus being subjected to manipulated prices. In addition to this, landowners, threatening to not renew

1512-408: The croppers left agriculture. Landlords opt for sharecropping to avoid the administrative costs and shirking that occurs on plantations and haciendas . It is preferred to cash tenancy because cash tenants take all the risks, and any harvest failure will hurt them and not the landlord. Therefore, they tend to demand lower rents than sharecroppers. Some economists have argued that sharecropping

1566-419: The inefficiency of agricultural share-contracting. Steven N.S. Cheung (1969), challenged this view, showing that with sufficient competition and in the absence of transaction costs, share tenancy will be equivalent to competitive labor markets and therefore efficient. He also showed that in the presence of transaction costs, share-contracting may be preferred to either wage contracts or rent contracts—due to

1620-448: The islands and coastal regions of Georgia . Many believed that this policy would be extended to all formerly enslaved people and their families as repayment for their treatment at the end of the war. In the summer of 1865, President Andrew Johnson , as one of the first acts of Reconstruction, instead ordered all land under federal control be returned to the owners from whom it had been seized. Southern landowners thus found themselves with

1674-574: The jail and killed Chisolm, his family, and one of his friends. No one was convicted for the attack. According to the Yorkville Enquirer , Chisolm was a Republican Party candidate for a seat in the U.S. Congress. Southern papers applauded the lynching . The Yorkville Enquirer concluded its report on the "Tragedy in Mississippi" noting that: "Other hangings will probably follow." Governor John Marshall Stone refused to launch an investigation and U.S. President Rutherford Hayes did not comment on

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1728-508: The killings. It was one of several reprisal actions in Mississippi during the period after Reconstruction. A freedman later confessed to killing Gully and was hanged. The New York Times wrote about it. James Monroe Wells , a deputy revenue collector and U.S. Army veteran, wrote the book The Chisolm Massacre: A Picture of "Home Rule" in Mississippi about it. His criticisms of locals were responded to by James Daniel Lynch 's account blaming Radical Republicans , Kemper County Vindicated, And

1782-514: The landowners do not manufacture the crops. This form of tenure becomes more common when markets penetrate. Farmers who farmed land belonging to others but owned their own mule and plow were called tenant farmers ; they owed the landowner a smaller share of their crops, as the landowner did not have to provide them with as much in the way of supplies. Historically, sharecropping occurred extensively in Scotland , Ireland and colonial Africa . Use of

1836-508: The lease at the end of the growing season, were able to apply pressure to their tenants. Sharecropping often proved economically problematic, as the landowners held significant economic control. In the Reconstruction Era, sharecropping was one of few options for penniless freedmen to support themselves and their families. Other solutions included the crop-lien system (where the farmer was extended credit for seed and other supplies by

1890-483: The merchant), a rent labor system (where the farmer rents the land but keeps their entire crop), and the wage system (worker earns a fixed wage but keeps none of their crop). Sharecropping as historically practiced in the American South was more economically productive than the gang system plantations using enslaved workers, though less productive than modern agricultural techniques. Sharecropping continued to be

1944-482: The mitigation of labor shirking and the provision of risk sharing. Joseph Stiglitz (1974, 1988), suggested that if share tenancy is only a labor contract, then it is only pairwise-efficient and that land-to-the-tiller reform would improve social efficiency by removing the necessity for labor contracts in the first place. Reid (1973), Murrel (1983), Roumasset (1995) and Allen and Lueck (2004) provided transaction cost theories of share-contracting, wherein tenancy

1998-524: The old slave ways". Not with standing, many formerly enslaved people, now called freedmen , having no land or other assets of their own, needed to work to support their families. A sharecropping system centered on cotton , a major cash crop , developed as a result. Large plantations were subdivided into plots that could be worked by sharecroppers. Initially, sharecroppers in the American South were almost all formerly enslaved black people, but eventually cash-strapped indigent white farmers were integrated into

2052-442: The population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 3,909 households, out of which 32.20% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.70% were married couples living together, 20.20% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.70% were non-families. 26.40% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.60% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size

2106-428: The project was still not in service, and the cost had increased to $ 7.1 billion. 32°46′N 88°39′W  /  32.76°N 88.65°W  / 32.76; -88.65 Sharecropping Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range of different situations and types of agreements that have used a form of the system. Some are governed by tradition, and others by law. The French métayage ,

2160-511: The rough whites." There had been a conflict on another train, in which a black man mortally shot a conductor, George Harrison. The yardmaster shot and killed the African American. The rioting by whites in Scooba started after Harrison died. Governor James K. Vardaman went to Scooba with militia to establish control. He left a force of 20 there commanded by Adjutant General Fridge and returned to

2214-474: The rural towns of Wahalak and Scooba ; by December 27, whites had killed a total of 13 blacks in rioting. The events started with a physical confrontation between a conductor and an African-American man on a Mobile & Ohio Railroad train. The conductor was cut, and he fatally shot two black men. George Simpson, another African American thought to be involved, escaped from the train. When captured in Wahalak by

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2268-658: The same time, African-Americans managed 106,738 farms as tenants. Around this time, sharecroppers began to form unions protesting against poor treatment, beginning in Tallapoosa County , Alabama in 1931 and Arkansas in 1934. Membership in the Southern Tenant Farmers Union included both blacks and poor whites, who used meetings, protests, and labor strikes to push for better treatment. The success of these actions frightened and enraged landlords, who responded with aggressive tactics. Landless farmers who fought

2322-400: The sharecropper on credit. In exchange for the land and supplies, the cropper would pay the owner a share of the crop at the end of the season, typically one-half to two-thirds. The cropper used his share to pay off their debt to the merchant. If there was any cash left over, the cropper kept it—but if their share came to less than what they owed, they remained in debt. A new system of credit,

2376-683: The sharecropper system has also been identified in England (as the practice of "farming to halves"). It was widely used in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877) that followed the American Civil War , which was economically devastating to the Southern states. It is still used in many rural poor areas of the world today, notably in Pakistan , India , and Bangladesh . In settler colonies of colonial Africa, sharecropping

2430-439: The sharecroppers were at a disadvantage in the annual accounting that was done by the landowners. Sometimes the planters had grocery stores on their property and required the sharecroppers to buy all their goods there, adding to their debt. Beginning in late December 1906, there were several days of racial terror in the county. After violent incidents on the railroad between conductors and black passengers, whites attacked blacks at

2484-618: The sharecropping system were socially denounced, harassed by legal and illegal means, and physically attacked by officials, landlords' agents, or in extreme cases, angry mobs. Sharecroppers' strikes in Arkansas and the Missouri Bootheel , the 1939 Missouri Sharecroppers' Strike, were documented in the newsreel Oh Freedom After While . The plight of a sharecropper was addressed in the song Sharecropper's Blues , recorded by Charlie Barnet and His Orchestra in 1944. The sharecropping system in

2538-415: The state capital on the evening of December 27. That day the body of another murdered African-American man was found in the woods, bringing the total killed in Scooba to six. In 1934, three African-American suspects in Kemper County were repeatedly whipped in order to force them to confess to murder. In Brown v. Mississippi (1936), the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled such forced confessions violated

2592-410: The system. During Reconstruction, the federal Freedmen's Bureau ordered the arrangements for freedmen and wrote and enforced their contracts. American sharecroppers worked a section of the plantation independently. In South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, the dominant crop was usually cotton. In other areas it could be tobacco , rice , or sugar . At harvest time the crop was sold and

2646-476: The unilateral authority that landowners hoped to achieve, further complicating relations between landowners and sharecroppers. Sharecropping may allow women to have access to arable land , albeit not as owners, in places where ownership rights are vested only in men. The theory of share tenancy was long dominated by Alfred Marshall 's famous footnote in Book VI, Chapter X.14 of Principles where he illustrated

2700-401: Was 2.57 and the average family size was 3.11. In the county, the population was spread out, with 25.40% under the age of 18, 12.50% from 18 to 24, 25.20% from 25 to 44, 21.80% from 45 to 64, and 15.10% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 92.20 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 88.30 males. The median income for

2754-478: Was a feature of the agricultural life. White farmers, who owned most of the land, were frequently unable to work the whole of their farm for lack of capital. They, therefore, had African farmers to work the excess on a sharecropping basis. In South Africa the 1913 Natives' Land Act outlawed the ownership of land by Africans in areas designated for white ownership and effectively reduced the status of most sharecroppers to tenant farmers and then to farm laborers. In

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2808-593: Was at its height in the decades around the turn of the 20th century, which followed the state's disenfranchisement of most blacks in 1890 through creating barriers to voter registration. In 1877 the Chisolm Massacre occurred, the murder by a mob of a judge, his children, and two of their friends while they were in protective custody in jail. In 1890, blacks made up the majority of the county' population: 10,084 blacks to 7,845 whites. They generally worked as sharecroppers or tenant farmers. Often illiterate, many of

2862-408: Was still unrest, because he felt they were not being treated properly. By the end of the day on December 26, white men in Scooba had killed another five black men. The county sheriff arrested several whites for these murders, and called for the state militia to go to Scooba. "All the men killed at Scooba today are said to be innocent of any crime, having been shot down merely as a matter of revenge by

2916-498: Was strongly opposed by former Republican State Chairman Clarke Reed of Greenville , who favored a less-expensive natural gas -fueled plant. Reed called the project "... a horrible thing." He said it would be a political issue that could be used against Republicans for years. The Kemper Project was scheduled to open in the third quarter of 2016, more than two years behind schedule. Its cost increased to $ 6.6 billion—three times original cost estimate. As of February 2017 ,

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