My ancestors survived by the mercy of the Ojibway

I am an angry settler.

For years I’ve been betrayed by my government and ashamed of my country for failing in reconciliation. We refuse responsibility and compassion. We refuse respect and gratitude.

I am a grateful settler. There is no space for white anger in reconciliation, no matter where that anger is directed.

But gratitude? There might be space for that.

In the mid-1800s, a devastating famine struck Ireland. The land was legally owned by wealthy British people; even though the country of Ireland was producing enough food to feed its population, that food did not belong to the Irish. It was exported by wealthy landowners to turn a profit while the citizens of Ireland starved to death.

My family fled. Six generations before my time, we crossed the Atlantic in the belly of an ex-slave ship. Corpses littered the sea behind us as they were tossed overboard, succumbing to disease and starvation.

We settled in the vast “Queen’s Bush” region of Ontario. Huron, Grey, Bruce — these counties were just being opened for settlement. It is territory of Saugeen Ojibway Nation, and the government was in the process of wresting it from them, but the Ojibway didn’t take it out on us.

They didn’t retaliate.

Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free? It’s not an idea white people came up with. We survived by the mercy of the Ojibway. We were poor, refugees, broken.

The British stole our land and beggared us. The Ojibway? They never stole from us. They had nothing to gain from by welcoming us into their territory, yet they shared. They believed there was enough. They had over a thousand years of culture and beliefs that instilled sharing, plenty, peace and stewardship.

There’s fear I hear from “angry settlers” about what the “natives” want. Do they want to kick us out? Some of them probably do — can you blame them?

But no, the majority are not asking us to leave. However, they never agreed for us to be in charge. We are the worst house guests in the history of time. They accepted us into their home; we took over every room until they were living in the closet under the stairs, and then we decided to run a pipeline through it.

It’s their house, and it’s time to give back the master bedroom.

To Saugeen Ojibway Nation, thank you. My ancestors were poor and powerless in the 1860s, and you allowed us to make a home for ourselves here. You let us live here in peace when you could have refused.

We were in your power, and you treated us with kindness.

Hundreds of thousands of Scottish and Irish refugee descendants owe our lives and successes to your forbearance.

We’ve been on the wrong side of history for over a century, but that doesn’t mean we have to remain there forever.

Kelly Morrison is a writer living and working on the traditional territory of Saugeen Ojibway Nation.