Properties, Dia Beacon, Installation view, 2024

Sharecropping was debt peonage. It was instituted to replace slave labor. It operated in explicit violation of the Thirteenth Amendment’s stated ban on involuntary servitude. Sharecropping contracts were designed to keep black people bound to the land, which their labor made valuable. Violations of the contract included leaving the plantation without permission; being loud, disorderly, drunk, or disobedient; having an “offensive weapon”; and misusing the tools. Violations were grounds for dismissal, eviction, and forfeiture of the share. In addition to cultivating the land, these contracts could include obligations to do the washing “and all other necessary house work” for the landlord’s family. Sharecroppers were forced to buy food, clothes, tools, and other necessities on credit from the landlord’s general store, also called the commissary. The commissary charged up to 70 percent interest. Debts were deducted from the cropper’s share. The contract and the commissary kept sharecroppers in perpetual debt. W. E. B. Du Bois describes the terms of this labor as “a wage approximating as nearly as possible slavery conditions, in order to restore capital lost in the war.” Many sharecroppers were former slaves. Many sharecroppers were the children of former slaves. Slaves used scythes as tools of rebellion in Henrico County, Virginia, in 1800; in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831; and in Coffeeville, Mississippi, in 1858. In violation of their contracts, croppers armed themselves as well. The tools of perpetual debt were also the tools of black riot.