Summary

Note: This object includes a derogatory slur relating to particular cultural groups. Such language is not condoned by Museums Victoria which considers it to be racist. Historical distance and context do not excuse or erase this fact.

Photograph of H.V. McKay Massey Harris, Farm Equipment Manufacture and Field Trials, Sunshine, Victoria, circa 1930s-1940s. The plough features a special attachment (#40) for ploughing what were called 'n*****r heads', a deeply racist and offensive term, demonstrating how casually this derogatory term was applied.

In a description of ploughing furrows, the Yankee Farmer, Boston, 25 August, 1838 states: 'when ploughing, special care was taken that the whole surface should be turned over with a good even furrow...A plough of larger than ordinary size, and constructed expressly for the purpose, was used, with a knife attached, sharp and strong enough to hold two yoke of oxen at a stump or root; and to this instrument, with few exceptions, green roots, not exceeding one and a half or two inches in diameter, presented no serious obstacle; and brake-hogs, commonly called "n****r-heads", were cut through and laid over so handsomely as one could wish..."

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