W.E.B. Du Bois

They have little to tide over a few years of economic depression, and are at the mercy of the cotton-market far more than the whites.

The men who conduct such farms do not long remain renters; either they sink to metayers, or with a successful series of harvests rise to be land-owners.

The sole advantage of this small class is their freedom to choose their crops, and the increased responsibility which comes through having money transactions.

The result of such rack-rent can only be evil,—abuse and neglect of the soil, deterioration in the character of the laborers, and a widespread sense of injustice.

There were, of course, exceptions to this,—cases of personal kindness and forbearance; but in the vast majority of cases the rule was to extract the uttermost farthing from the mass of the black farm laborers.

If the tenant worked hard and raised a large crop, his rent was raised the next year; if that year the crop failed, his corn was confiscated and his mule sold for debt.

If cotton rose in price, the rent rose even higher; if cotton fell, the rent remained or followed reluctantly.

But with the carrying out of the crop-lien system, the deterioration of the land, and the slavery of debt, the position of the metayers has sunk to a dead level of practically unrewarded toil.

Thus we have a laborer without capital and without wages, and an employer whose capital is largely his employees’ wages.

All social struggle is evidenced by the rise, first of economic, then of social classes, among a homogeneous population.

Above all, they cannot see why they should take unusual pains to make the white man’s land better, or to fatten his mule, or save his corn.

They are careless because they have not found that it pays to be careful; they are improvident because the improvident ones of their acquaintance get on about as well as the provident.