The freedman or should we say slaves at that time agreed to become a sharecropper because they can have a land access with the slave emancipation. sharecropping also enables access for women to ownership.
Did you republicans? Well, anyways, i believe it's "scalawags."
Scalawags - a white Southerner who collaborated with northern Republicans during Reconstruction, often for personal profit. The term was used derisively by white Southern Democrats who opposed Reconstruction legislation.