Even after the slaves were freed, they could not be employed as?

Four clear options emerged for the freedmen and women after the war: obtain land, move, work for former masters, or sharecrop. Some freedmen were able to obtain their own personal land to work to support themselves and their families. Others opted to move to the cities and the North to find work that was not agrarian based. Directly after the war, plantation owners established a contract labor system that employed their former slaves