CHAPTER XX 

 TENANT FARMERS IN THE UNITED STATES PRIOR TO 1880 



PRIOR to 1880 there were no statistics relating to tenancy 

 and landownership in the United States. Regarding this period 

 our knowledge must be based upon such statement as can be 

 found in the literature of the period. Such material is unsatis- 

 factory but in the absence of anything more reliable should be 

 used. A little evidence is better than none even if it serve only 

 to emphasize the lack of knowledge and to discourage the 

 making of unwarranted assumptions. A wide range of opinion 

 has been expressed regarding the prevalence of tenancy in the 

 United States prior to 1880. One writer expresses the belief 

 that at one time all farmers were landowners and that there 

 had been a gradual decrease in the percentage of landownership 

 on the part of farmers, 1 while another writer has expressed 

 the conviction that the percentage of the tillers of the soil 

 who own the land they cultivate has greatly increased since 

 the middle of the nineteenth century. 2 It is doubtful if either 

 of these positions can be proved to the entire satisfaction of all 

 students of the question. 



It is the purpose in this chapter to piece together the evidence 

 of tenancy in the United States prior to the first census report 



1 North American Review, Vol. 142, p. 393. 



2 Twelfth Census, Vol. V, p. Ixvi. In justice to the author of the statement 

 referred to in the census, let it be made clear that landowning farmers are com- 

 pared in importance not with tenant farmers but with all tillers of the soil other 

 than landowning farmers. That is, tenant farmers and farm laborers have been 

 thrown together, and the claim made that this class of non-landowning tillers of 

 the soil has not increased so rapidly as the landowning farmers. It was not con- 

 tended that the percentage of tenant farmers had not increased but that the per- 

 centage of laborers had decreased more than enough to counterbalance the increase 

 in tenancy, that the change was between these two classes, and that increased 

 tenancy did not mean a decrease in the importance of landownership on the part 

 of those engaged in farming. 



238 



