Thoreau's adoption of transcendentalist beliefs was reflected in both in his writing about nature as well as his political views. The transcendentalist believed that though the world of the soul was paramount, it was necessary to recognize the truth and the beauty of God's creation in the natural world.
Most of the freedmen became sharecroppers of the landowners. Although they were promised wages, the freedmen ended up with more debts than they could pay. This economic opportunity turned out to be another form of servitude. The sharecroppers had to live on credit from the landowners until they were able to sell their cotton. Oftentimes they still owed the landowners because the latter charged high prices and interest which they collected out of the crop earnings at the end of the season. More often than not, this left the sharecropper with very minimal or no profit at all and they had to work off this debt the next season.
