In 1743, Prairie du Rocher established a common field system brought by French settlers, in which farmland and animal pasture were communally owned by the village. Inhabitants mutually agreed on restrictions such as when animals could graze and when crops would be taken in, and each villager's assigned share depended on the size of his family. The Common Grounds still exist today as the last evidence of self-government by the inhabitants of Prairie du Rocher, and profits from them help fund the Prairie du Rocher School. Under the Coutume de Paris and le Code Noir, women and free Blacks had the same rights and responsibilities as other French inhabitants, including owning land and carrying on trade, and if a widow remarried, a second husband had no right to her estate if that marriage ended in divorce. By 1849, all Blacks in Prairie du Rocher were free, years before the Civil War. Because cooperation was essential to sustain the common field system, it encouraged less violence and a tendency to settle disagreements.