In the database of the United States 1880 census there is a person whose occupation is transcribed as "DEALING IN SLAVES." There's another person whose occupation is transcribed as "DEALER IN SLAVES STOVES". I say "transcribed" because it's possible (likely) that with the civil war being 15 years over that the former person was dealing in, oh, "STAVES" or "STOVES." Such are the hazards of transcribing old handwriting from microfilm. "SLAVES STOVES" is at least plausible, since it may describe a kind of stove. We can deal with that!
Now that we're wrapping up our coding of this data by coding the products people were selling, the question arises how would you classify someone who really was dealing in slaves. The United Nations has a classification scheme for economic activity which understandably doesn't include trade in slaves. You know, declaration of human rights and all that ... The least inaccurate option would be to include slaves under "live animals."
In this case I'm inclined to give the person a code for "we don't really know," not because I'm squeamish about calling slaves animals (we're all animals, after all), but because I think this is a transcription error that has got this far.
Enjoy your freedom.
Posted by robe0419 at January 30, 2006 3:43 PM