Guia Practica de Jueces Locales de la Isla de Cuba

Havana: Imprenta Militar, 1860. Very good.. 87,[5],231-248,[3]pp. plus forty-one plates (many folding) accounted for in pagination, complete, as issued. Tall quarto. Full red morocco, handsomely gilt, with gilt-stamped presentation on front cover, gilt dentelles, sumptuous gilt-floral-decorated endpapers. Extremities rubbed, minor soiling to boards. Minor foxing to first few leaves, text occasionally lightly toned. Unique presentation copy of the first Cuban legal guide, specially bound and presented by the author to the Captain General of Cuba, D. Francisco Serrano Dominguez (1810 1885), regent of the kingdom, President of the Council of Ministers, Captain General of Cuba and President of the First Spanish Republic. Francisco Serrano Dominguez Cuenca y Peirez de Vargas, 1st Duke of la Torre, Grandee of Spain, Count of San Antonio (December 17, 1810 - November 25, 1885) was a Spanish marshal and statesman. He was Prime Minister of Spain in 1868-69 and regent in 1869-70. O'Donnell appointed Serrano as marshal in 1856 and captain-general of Cuba from 1859 to 1862. Serrano governed that island with success, and helped carry out the war in Santo Domingo. He was the first viceroy to advocate political and financial reforms in the colony.

The work itself covers a wide variety of legal issues relating to life and business in Cuba in 1860. These include regulations governing weights and measures, appointments and duties of local officials, the handling of beggars and peddlers, business licensing, procedures for reporting crimes, and much, much more, stipulated in ninety-six consecutively-numbered paragraphs of varying lengths in the first section and spread throughout the remaining text in printed legal models and forms. One of the more impactful regulations in the first section lays out rules for subduing slaves, capturing fugitive slaves, and mentions slave revolts. The second section of the work defines various elements of Spanish law, including the nature of citizenship, marriage, guardianship, wills, and more. The third section defines dozens of crimes, arranging them alphabetically from abortion to vagrancy. This is followed by a listing of officials by department, and then over forty printed templates ("modelos" and "formularios") for various legal and accounting uses; some of the forms are rather large and are folded into the work. Particularly notable are the two-page "formularios" relating to fugitive slaves ("Numero 24") and the movement of slaves ("Numero 26"), as well as the folding plate relating to identification for free people of color ("Numero 31").

A very rare Cuban legal guide chock full of useful contemporary information relating to governance of the island, and worthy of deep study. OCLC records just six physical copies worldwide, at the National Library of Spain, NYPL, the Bancroft, the University of Florida, University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Minnesota Law Library. Yet none of these copies were presented to the President of the First Spanish Republic who was also an early advocate for reform in Cuba.