Once slaves were set free did they continue to work for the same establishments that they had as a slave but now for pay? Did they continue to live in the same houses that they had previously but now presumably paying rent to stay there? I imagine that many slaves who were mistreated would leave their former masters as soon as they could. If so did this cause many plantations to close down or go bust? Thank you to anyone who can answer my question, there doesn't seem to be anything in the FAQ about this subject.
Many enslaved people decided to hit the road and see the world or look for lost family members, taking advantage of the first time in their lives that they had had freedom of movement. Other enslaved people continued working the land, but planted food crops rather than cash crops. Many enslaved people also believed that the federal government was going to provide them with a share of the wealth they had created, allowing them to become independent farmers (the famous '40 acres and a mule') and refused to work for their slaveholders.
The federal government had an agency that was responsible for dealing with the problems of former slaves, The Freedman's Bureau, which in the first year after slavery noticed the collapse of the Southern economy that the end of slavery had created and began forcing enslaved people into work contracts that were not dissimilar to slavery itself, binding them to their former masters. Ultimately, however, enslaved people demanded far more autonomy than they had previously been granted and refused to work in centralized plantations. This, combined with the desire to control enslaved people, led to the debt peonage system known as sharecropping taking the place of slavery.