>1. Is an S cropper a sharecropper? Can a sharecropper own land?
>2. If he paid personal property tax, does that mean that he did NOT own
>land?

Yes, an S cropper  probably meant a sharecropper -- just like a tenant
farmer. The owner allowed him to use the land, and in exchange the tenant
usually paid part of his crops to the owner or paid him in labor (like
paying rent). If things went well, eventually the tenant  was able to save
enough money to buy his own land.

The land owner did not pay the tithe on a tenant farmer  (or sharecropper).
A tenant farmer or sharecropper was a FREE man and responsible for his own
tithes.

The land owner did pay tithes for any indentured men working for him.
Often, these men worked on the owner's Quarter -- a tract of land the owner
did not live on, but was being worked.

All free men paid the tithe (usually in tobacco) in the county in which
they lived, unless the parish exempted them due to old age or infirmity.
The tithes went into the parish funds, subsidizing bridges, poor house
payments, etc.

Only landowners paid the land tax. Although they paid that tax in every
county in which they owned land, they were only tithed in the county in
which they lived. As an earlier poster pointed out, many men did not own
land; therefore the county tithe lists include more names than the land tax
lists.

For more information, Daphne Gentry prepared an excellent article on
"tithables:"
http://www.lva.lib.va.us/pubserv/vanotes/vanotes3.htm

and also on the later VA tax lists:
http://www.lva.lib.va.us/pubserv/vanotes/vanotes11.htm



Julia Shiflett Crosswell
Fort Worth, TX

Shifflett Family Genealogy Website:
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hills/4575/
March 1999 web site of the month at GenExchange

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