Question

the chart below lists economic problems faced by southerners at the end of the civil war.

• former plantation owners lacked workers.
• freed slaves lacked land, livestock, tools and money.

which system developed during the reconstruction era to resolve these problems?
○ southern landowners sold former plantations to northern investors.
○ freedmen migrated to the north to obtain free land, livestock, and tools.
○ southern banks made loans to freedmen who bought land from their former masters.
○ freedmen often became sharecroppers or tenant farmers on the properties of their former masters

Explanation:

The problem is about the economic and social system developed during Reconstruction to address the issues of former plantation owners (needing workers) and freed slaves (needing land, resources). Sharecropping/tenant farming is the system where freedmen became sharecroppers or tenant farmers on former masters' properties. Let's analyze the options:

• Option 1: Selling plantations to Northern investors doesn't solve the labor need for former owners or resource need for freedmen.
• Option 2: Freedmen migrating North doesn't solve the labor problem for Southern landowners.
• Option 3: Southern banks making loans to freedmen buying land from former masters – but freedmen lacked money, and this doesn't address the labor shortage for owners.
• Option 4: Freedmen as sharecroppers/tenant farmers means former owners get labor, and freedmen get to work (with access to land, in a way) – this matches the system developed (sharecropping) to resolve both groups' problems.

Answer:

The option "Freedmen often became sharecroppers or tenant farmers on the properties of their former masters" (the fourth option in the list).