Soup Can; or, On Hospitality: American trespass

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: 155 ate in the spring of this worrisome year I went for a walk in the countryside of upstate New York. From atop the hill, I got a good view of my friend’s large white farmhouse and its barn below. The pale blue sky was hazy, so the outline of the mountain range softened against it. Below, vegetable gardens with spoon-­ leafed lettuce and thin stalks of new onion unfurled in the mud. It was a particularly cold and wet spring, and the new grass flickered in a vital green, as if lit by the ground itself. As an invited guest at this farm, I felt emboldened to walk in any direction—that is, until I encountered the blacktop road that also served as the property line. Looking across it, I noticed another white farmhouse set far back from the road. essay Soup Can; or, On Hospitality American trespass Wendy S. Walters L 156 | Wendy S. Walters These two homesteads appeared peaceful, but either one of them might have contained guns. The land I was walking on originally belonged to the Munsee Delaware, who suffered nearly two centuries of assaults by settlers, including Kieft’s War, or the Wappinger War, fought from 1643 to 1645 with the Dutch. That conflict had a lasting impact on the Munsee’s security in this territory. While the Dutch used muskets to fight, the Munsee had been denied access to them. Another dispute along the nearby Esopus River in 1656 was hastened to its end by the spread of smallpox among the Munsee, leaving the surviving community at just a few hundred people. In the early 1800s, after centuries of violence, the Munsee sought to make a home in new lands jointly with the Stockbridge, a neighboring indigenous people. Together they relocated to Wisconsin in 1831. because this is the United States of America, guns remain an unresolved factor in the history of the landscape, including the vista I saw during my walk on that hill above the farm. They complicate my understanding of neighborliness and community, especially in places new to me. Just as I suspect some people who live in the country fret over being subjected to violence when they come to the city, violence is on my mind when I come into the country. Here’s what I worry about: What if I get lost? To whom can I turn to find assistance or direction? Where might I be allowed to rest as I make my way? As much as I want to embrace the walker’s right to roam, I know that to poke about or meander in unfamiliar lands comes at great per