A slager is a butcher. An old term for slager is ‘vleeshouwer’ or ‘vleeschhouwer’ (literally: meat cleaver).
Poor people did not often eat meat. One of the recurring themes in letters written by emigrants to the United States is their surprise that everyone is able to afford eating meat. These ‘spekbrieven’ [bacon letters] are one of the reasons why many relatives chose to follow them.
Another name for slager is slachter.
They are similar but not the same today. A slachter is the person who kills the animal, the slager is the one who sells the meat. Historically, both tasks would have been done by the same person.
Interesting to know there is a difference. I have an ancestor named Slager, which in later records was changed to Slagter, occupation vleeshouwer. Is this just an alternate spelling?
And according to family lore, my maternal great grandmother said that she liked the United States just find except that she couldn’t get any good horse meat.
Have you got any more information on slagers and their families?
My family says we have always been labourers and couldn’t find any relatives that were butchers although, were all slagers