Tenant farmer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A tenant farmer is one who resides on and farms land owned by a landlord. The rights the tenant has over the land, and the form of payment, varies across different systems. In some systems, he could be evicted at whim (tenancy at will); in others, he signs a contract for a fixed number of years (tenancy for years or indenture).

Types of tenant farming include sharecropping and some forms of peonage.

Tenant farming is distinct from the serfdom of medieval Europe, where the land and the serfs were legally inseparable. Although in later years some men contracted with lords to become serfs, even though the status was then hereditary.