Which statement explains how the sharecropping system kept emancipated slaves tied to the plantation land they had worked before the Civil War?
a. Sharecroppers who failed to pay the landlord the amount owed were sent to forced-labor prisons until their debt was paid.
b. Most African American sharecroppers ended each year owing money to the landlord, thus preventing them from leaving the land.
c. Only large landowners such as former plantation owners had enough land to make a sharecropping arrangement possible and profitable.
d. The typical sharecropping contract required farmers to pledge to work the land for a long period, thus keeping African Americans from leaving agricultural labor.