Index of Crop Liens, James Island, Charleston County, SC, 1885 to 1894

Immediately following the Civil War, group labor contracts were the means by which the transition from slave to paid agricultural labor was made. After the Freedmen’s Bureau withdrew from the southern states, contract labor gave way to tenant farming and the crop lien system.

Under the crop lien system, merchants extended credit to individual farmers who borrowed against the anticipated value of future crops. When the harvest was made, farmers repaid the merchant from the proceeds [1].

Sometimes the crop proceeds were sufficient to repay the lender. If they were not, the farmer would begin the new growing season working to repay ever-increasing debts in a cycle historians have termed debt peonage. The crop lien system, though often harmful to the autonomy of individual farmers, was the means by which southern agriculture was rebuilt in the years following the Civil War [2].

From 1885 to 1894, cotton merchant Joseph T. Dill extended credit to farmers on James Island and in rural Charleston County. Below is an index of the liens. The original documents can be accessed on microfilm at the Register of Mesne Conveyance, Charleston County Courthouse, O.T. Wallace County Office Building, 101 Meeting Street, Room 200, Charleston, SC.

References Cited

[1] Royce, Edward 1993 The Origins of Southern Share Cropping. Temple University Press, pp. 187-188.

[2] Danbom, David B. 2006 Born in the Country: A History of Rural America. JHU Press, unpaged.