380-381_COTXSE_5_18_p 11/18/02 10:32 AM Page 380 The Reign of King Cotton 1865–1895 SECTION 1 Postwar Changes to Texas Farming SECTION 2 Railroads Lead to Commercial Farming SECTION 3 Cotton: The King of Texas Crops VIEW THE Texas on Tape CHAPTER 18 VIDEO LESSON. Away here in Texas the white cotton fields Look like plains covered over with snow, And corn in abundance at everywhere yields And oats most luxuriantly grow. Folk song “Away Here in Texas,” author unknown Clara McDonald Williamson, Chicken for Dinner 1865 1875 1885 1895 1865 Civil War ends; Texas 1876 Era of great railroad 1890 James Hogg is 1894 Boll weevil slaves are freed expansion begins elected governor infests Texas of Texas cotton crops 1872 Immigrants begin to arrive 1885 Robert Munger develops new in Texas to farm cotton cotton ginning process 380 ✯ Chapter 18 380-381_COTXSE_5_18_p 11/18/02 10:32 AM Page 381 Rev. Johnnie Swearingen, Cotton Picking Before You Read Can you think of agricultural products that you Think about use every day? Perhaps you are wearing a T-shirt • the different kinds of crops grown in Texas or blue jeans made from cotton. Or you may eat • how these crops reach local grocery stores Texas-grown fruits and vegetables. Many farms in Texas provide food and materials for making • products made from Texas-grown crops common items. • agriculture-based festivals and cultural events As You Read Organizing Information The Civil War left the Texas economy in ruins. Many Texans returned to farming to support themselves and their families. Thanks to a combination of events, many farmers eventually were able to buy enough land to grow food to sell to others as well as to feed their families. Completing this graphic organizer for Chapter 18 will help you to understand some of the GROWTH OF factors that led to the development of commer- FARMING cial agriculture in Texas. IN TEXAS • Copy the fishbone map in your Texas Notebook. • As you read, look for the causes that helped promote the growth of commercial agriculture in Texas. Write this information on the diagonal lines. • Write the supporting details for each of the three causes on the straight lines. The Reign of King Cotton ✯ 381 382-395TXSE_5_18_p 11/18/02 10:33 AM Page 382 Why It Matters Now Postwar Changes Traces of the economy and 1 society that developed after the Civil War can still be seen in to Texas Farming Texas today. TERMS & NAMES OBJECTIVES MAIN IDEA bond, credit, 1. Analyze the economic effects of the After the Civil War, life in Texas commercial farming, Civil War on Texas. changed dramatically. Economic subsistence farming, barter, 2. Analyze the social effects of the Civil War problems led to a return to the tenant farming, sharecropper, on Texas. small family farm, and the freed landlord, mortgage, 3. Express and defend a point of view about slaves faced the problems of cycle of poverty postwar events in Texas. earning a living in conditions that were often unfair. WHAT Would You Do? Imagine that you are a slave on a Texas plantation. After years of Write your response dreaming of a better life, you suddenly are told that you are free. You to Interact with History now have the right to live wherever and however you wish, as long as in your Texas Notebook. you follow the laws of the land. What would be your plan of action? How would you make a living? Where would you live? How might these plans change if you had family members with you? Economic Conditions After the War Because most of the Civil War battles were fought in other states, Texas suffered little physical damage. But even though the land remained intact, the economy did not. The war left Texas and its people financially ruined. To begin with, many people’s entire savings were tied up in bond certificate issued by Confederate bonds. When the Confederacy was broken up, these pieces a government or company of paper became worthless. promising to pay back a Many businesses also fell into financial ruin. Before and during the borrowed sum with interest war, businesses had sold goods to the Confederate government on credit. credit an agreement in which Now these debts would never be paid. This was a fatal blow to many a buyer is allowed to pay over businesses that owed debts of their own. a period of time, usually with interest or fees added The Return of the Small Farm As more and more businesses failed, many men and women found themselves without jobs. For many, the only way to survive was to grow their own food. The small family farm was once again common in Texas. Although many Texans had farmed before the Civil War, little about farming life remained the same after the war. Soldiers returned home to find their farms in desperate need of repair. Plows, wagons, barns, and 382 ✯ Chapter 18 382-395TXSE_5_18_p 11/18/02 10:33 AM Page 383 ▲ The Civil War and the emancipation of slaves left Texans providing for themselves on a smaller scale. Some had to spin their own cotton to make clothing. ● How do you think subsistence farming affected theTexas economy? fences had to be repaired or replaced. To make matters worse, lines of commercial farming producing transportation were underdeveloped and inefficient. Building new roads, crops for sale railways, and shipping centers was made more costly and time-consum- subsistence farming producing ing by the economic conditions in postwar Texas and the state’s size. As almost all the goods needed by the a result, farmers often could not obtain the supplies they needed. farm family, usually with a little The lack of efficient transportation in Texas also made it difficult to extra for sale send crops to market. Without a low-cost way to ship these goods, Texans barter to trade one product or saw little reason to pursue commercial farming. Instead, most farmers service for another returned to subsistence farming after the war. That is, farmers generally tenant farming the practice of grew only enough food to meet their own family’s needs. renting the land on which one Most farm families grew corn and other grains and raised a few barn- lives and farms yard animals. Gardens provided fresh vegetables for the family table. Any extra eggs, milk, or vegetables were bartered or sold to neighbors or to merchants in town. This was a way for farm families to obtain goods and services that they could not produce themselves. The Rise of Tenant Farming To Mathematics Before a family could begin farming, it needed land. Unfortunately, few Texans owned land. Many lost their land because of financial diffi- Taking out a loan was risky for culties during and after the Civil War. Some plantation owners, however, poor tenant farmers. Often, lenders would charge an inter- had large amounts of land going to waste. These landowners divided their est rate of up to 150 percent. plantations into smaller sections that could be sold to farm families. If This meant the farmer had to the families could not afford to buy the land outright, they could rent it. pay back two and a half times The practice of renting land for farming is known as tenant farming—a as much as he or she had bor- way of life that Texans would maintain for decades to come. rowed. As a result, even a small The problem with tenant farming is that it seldom allows a tenant loan could put a family in debt for years. ● At an interest rate farmer to earn enough money to buy the land. Unlike purchase payments, of 150 percent, how much rental payments never end. Even after years of payments, a tenant farmer would a farmer owe on a loan is no closer to owning the land than when he or she started. Few families of $100? had the cash to pay for land, so tenant farming was a way to survive. It The Reign of King Cotton ✯ 383 382-395TXSE_5_18_p 11/18/02 10:33 AM Page 384 provided a family with land on which to live and grow the food they needed. As a result, the number of tenant farms in Texas increased from Overcoming about 38 percent of all farms in 1880 to about 50 percent in 1900. Illiteracy One thing that kept many Sharecropping families trapped in a cycle of A few farm families were able to pay their rent in cash. However, poverty was illiteracy, or the inability to read and write. many families were too poor for that. Instead, they paid with a share of Before the Civil War, slave the crop. These tenant farmers were known as sharecroppers. owners purposely kept African There were two main types of sharecroppers. Some owned their own Americans from learning to read. farming equipment and bought their own supplies, such as seed and As a result, most freed slaves fertilizer. These families owed the landlord only for the use of the land. were illiterate. This put them at Poorer renters started out with little more than their own labor and skills. a great disadvantage in matters of business and politics. The landowner furnished the farm equipment, seed, and other supplies, The Freedmen’s Bureau, as well as the land. These renters usually owed as much as half of their which operated in Texas for a crops to the landlord. Often the landlord would sell the crop and then few years following the Civil pay only a “wage” to the sharecropper.