Which labor system kept many African Americans in a subservient economic position after the Civil War?

The labor system that kept many African Americans in a subservient economic position after the Civil War was sharecropping. This system emerged in the South during the Reconstruction era as a way for landowners to keep control over the labor force. Formerly enslaved individuals, who had little capital, often entered into sharecropping agreements, where they would work land owned by someone else in exchange for a portion of the crop produced.

Under this arrangement, the sharecropper typically received supplies and housing from the landowner, but as a result, they often incurred significant debt due to high prices for goods and unfair accounting practices. This led to a cycle of poverty and dependence. Although sharecropping provided some level of autonomy compared to slavery, it effectively maintained a form of economic exploitation that limited African Americans' opportunities for upward mobility and kept them tethered to the land and the landowners.

The other labor systems, such as skilled labor, wage labor, and indentured servitude, either did not apply in the same context after the Civil War or provided greater economic independence than sharecropping. Skilled labor might have offered better prospects for some individuals, and wage labor represented a more typical employment model that afforded workers the opportunity to earn wages that could help