8 BULLETIN 1260, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PLANTATION SYSTEM 
To show the relation of land tenure to plantation organization it 
is necessary to have in mind the nature of the plantation, the size of 
operating unit, and the system, of farm management usually em- 
ployed. Some idea of the early development of the plantation may 
help in an understanding of the present type. 
Origin and development. — The plantation in the United States first 
developed as a system of colonization. The earliest course of develop- 
ment was first from trading posts, mere community settlements of 
quasi-public enterprises, to cooperative stock-company and "society" 
plantation settlements. The association or society plan of settle- 
ment represented the transition from the public plantation as the 
method of colonization to the plantations established by private 
individuals. In fact, coincident with the society plan of develop- 
ment, plantations were established by individual enterprisers and 
close corporations. These were centralized organizations, making 
use of free and indentured labor, and they definitely marked the 
establishment of plantation farming in America. 6 
Plantation development was greatly augmented by the importa- 
tion of negro slaves to the colonies. Free and indentured labor was 
rapidly displaced by negro slaves. The early colonial policy of 
granting large tracts of land gave rise to the development of landed 
holdings, which favored the growth of plantations. The political 
and cooperative plan of organization gave way to the commercial 
type. The ante-bellum plantation soon developed its main character- 
istics — centralized organizations, close supervision of labor, and 
specialization in production. By the time of the Civil War, planta- 
tion farming had become concentrated in those fertile areas of the 
South especially adapted to the production of staple crops. Under 
the slave system, the plantation reached its greatest extent in the 
typical sections and its greatest development along the line of cen- 
tralization of management and control, and correspondingly its 
greatest significance as a system of agricultural organization. 
After the Civil War, a complete reorganization of the plantation 
system was necessary. When negro slaves, no longer bound to the 
plantation, became freedmen, the first thought of the planter was to 
substitute wage hands for slave labor. Immediately, however, in 
most parts of the South where the plantation predominated, except 
in the sugar cane and rice belts, a movement began for the sub- 
stitution of the tenant system. This was due, among other reasons, 
to the negro's desire to escape supervision, to keen competition anions 
the planters for labor, and to the lack of resources which would 
enable the planters to employ labor on some plan other than deferred 
payment. 7 
At first, share cropping, 8 together with wage labor, was the plan 
used by resident planters who exercised close supervision over the 
labor, while renting became prevalent on plantations of nonresident 
owners or managers. In recent years, in most of the region, tenants 
have been emplo} r ed under close supervision. Under the post- 
bellum system, all or a part of the plantation, formerly operated as a 
6 Gr;t> , I,. <"., The iiist<>r\ of Southern Apiculture before the Civil War. Unpublished manuscript. 
i See Brooks, R. P., The Agrarian Revolution in Georgia, Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, 
I, 191 1. 
8 ".Share cropping" here refers to the use of croppers. See definitions, p. 30. 
