Have students define sharecropping using internet research, and write a class definition on the board. Tell students that they will be analyzing the extent to which sharecropping was fair and just in today’s activity. Distribute the following two primary sources to all students.

• Agreement Between Landlord and Sharecroppers (written by the landlord)
• Sharecropping Agreement written by the Freedmen’s Bureau

Divide students into small groups. Have them do a careful close reading of the two documents. After, each group create a poster with a Venn diagram or T-chart comparing and contrasting the two sharecropping contracts.

Bring the groups back together to discuss the following questions:

• What was similar about the contract written by the landlord (Isham G. Bailey) for sharecroppers on his land, and the contract that the Freedmen’s Bureau created? What were the differences?
• What models existed for free labor during wartime reconstruction? To what extent did various models of free labor benefit Black Americans, and to what extent did they exploit formerly enslaved people?
• What was the role of the Union government in supporting efforts for free labor? What role did the government play in upholding existing racial and economic hierarchies?
• In what ways did American racism “shape-shift” to maintain a racial and economic hierarchy after enslavement in the South?
• To what extent were Black-led efforts to achieve free labor in Union-occupied Southern territories successful?