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| Plaque in Saint-Saveur, La Rochelle |
In pursuit of opportunity, I moved to land used by several nations, including Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish, Sto:lo, Stz'uminus, Musqueam, Katzie, Kwantlen, Kwikwetlem, Tsawwassen, and Qayqayt. It's a beautiful land on the west coast of Turtle Island, hemmed in between mountains and sea. But like so much of Turtle Island, the land was never ceded. In popular parlance, it's stolen land.
The title my spouse and I hold on our land was granted by the provincial authority, the descendant of the colonial state imposed upon the land and its inhabitants. The original title holder either claimed the land or purchased it, but not from any of the First Nations whose land it was. They never granted title to anyone, and they never received recompense.
I was born on Turtle Island. My ancestors for the previous 300 years had been born on Turtle Island. But before that, most of them had come from Europe. Only one ninth-great-grandmother*, with others possible but undetermined, belonged to the land already. I am mainly the descendant of people who came and stayed and imposed their colony and state upon the land.
Do I belong on this land? Do I belong on any of the land on this continent? Do 10 generations of ancestors born here make me belong to the land?
When someone asks Lee Maracle if Indigenous people want settlers to go back home, she answers with a wry "Maybe." I can't disagree with any native person who says we should leave. We perpetrated some terrible atrocities and in general did a shitty job of being colonizers. There might be nothing we can do now to make things better. So maybe there is nothing I can do to belong to this continent.
It's not that it was wrong to sail to Turtle Island or even to settle here. But it was wrong to push the Indigenous people out. It was wrong to try to convert and assimilate Indigenous people. It was wrong to kidnap them and bring them to Europe, or make them servants or slaves. It was wrong to think of them as less and to treat them as less. An early melding of cultures did not continue as settlers mostly retained their own ways.
If an edifice was constructed by enslaved people or if people were executed so their blood could be part of the foundation, can the edifice ever be simply magnificent and beautiful and glorious? Or is it forever tainted by its origins? Is there a road forward on Turtle Island? Or is the damage too deep and too messy?
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| Saint-Sulpice, Paris |
It wasn't that I found the culture familiar. There is no magical connection between me and the descendants of people who said goodbye to those who went across the ocean more than 300 years ago. But I found France comfortable. It fit me, somehow. Not all the time, of course, but more often than I had imagined it would. I was walking where my ancestors walked.
I might well belong on that land. Some kind of human beings were in the area of France all the way back to the original migration into Europe by both Homo neanderthalis and H. sapiens. The Romans found Celtic Gauls, related to much of the population of Europe. Frankish and other invaders did not cause the Celtic culture to vanish, but it lies somewhere between the margins and assimilation. For the most part, the French people have been the French people for a long time.
I might live out my remaining days on the shore of the Salish Sea. I might never do more than visit my ancient homeland. But I take some comfort in knowing that I might belong somewhere, even if it's not here.
[Information on whose land I lived and live on came from Native Land, an excellent interactive map project.]
* I originally wrote "eighth." "Ninth" is correct.
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