"New laws also redefined in the interest of the planter the terms of credit and the right to property--the essence of economic power in the rural South. Lien laws now gave a landlord's claim to his share of the crop precedence over a laborer's for wages or a merchant's for supplies, thus shifting much of the risk of farming from employer to employee. North Carolina's notorious Landlord and Tenant Act of 1877 placed the entire crop in the planter's hands until rent had been paid and allowed him full power to decide when a tenant's obligation had been fulfilled--thus making the landlord "the court, sheriff, and jury," complained one former slave."