The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation: Stories of My Family’s Journey to Freedom

White Sharecroppers on Wessyngton Plantation

After the Civil War several former Wessyngton slaves remained on the plantation.  Others moved to Nashville, to the north, surrounding counties and some purchased their own farms. 

When the former slaves left the area many white farmers and African Americans came to Wessyngton Plantation and became sharecroppers and resided in the former slave cabins.

Under the sharecropping system, the landowner received two thirds of the crop and the tenant or sharecropper only received one third of the crop.  The sharecropper was provided a house, mules, land, seed and fetilizer.  They raised crops of tobacco, corn, wheat and rye.

African American and white sharecroppers continued farming on Wessyngton Plantation until the property was sold by the Washington family in 1983 nearly 200 years after the plantation was founded.