University of Virginia Library

The Mortgage Evil

The first year our people received their
freedom they had nothing on which to live
while they grew their cotton crops. Funds for
the first crops were supplied by the storekeeper

or by former masters. A debt was created,
and to secure this indebtedness a lien was given
on the cotton crops. In this way there was
started in the South the mortgage or crop-lien
system,—a system that has proved a curse to
the black and to the white man ever since it
was instituted. Development of the Negro.