Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

Permission to publish material from the Samuel Crews Sharecropper Contract must be obtained from Special Collections, Virginia Tech.

Preferred Citation

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Samuel Crews Sharecropper Contract, Ms2008-067 - Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Va.

Acquisition Information

The Samuel Crews Sharecropper Contract was purchased by Special Collections.

Processing Information

The processing and description of the Samuel Crews Sharecropper Contract occurred in August, 2008.

Biographical Information

Samuel Walter Crews appears in Virginia's 1850 census under southern Halifax County as a four-year-old boy, thus placing his birth in around 1846. Crews was born to James Henry Crews and Marguerite Walker and had three sisters: Anne E., Phebe M. and Mary F.

Crews was a sharecropper, one who farms land without owning it for a share of the yield. Sharecropping became popular in Halifax County, Virginia, after the abolition of slavery caused landowners to seek new forms of labor.

Scope and Content

The Samuel Crews Sharecropper Contract is a manuscript agreement between S. and R. Dodd and Samuel Crews for the year 1877. The contract outlines the terms in which Samuel Crews can farm, but not own, land in Halifax County, Virginia. In the document, Crews agrees to pay the Dodds one fourth of crops grown and to build a fence. Crops cultivated include tobacco, corn, wheat, and oats. This diversified list of crops represents the shift away from a tobacco monoculture that occurred between 1870 and 1880 in Virginia.