>> From the Library of Congress in Washington,DC. ^M00:00:04 ^M00:00:20 >> Juan Felipe Herera: Hello, I am Juan Felipe Ferraro, the US Poet Laureate of the United States and I am here with Nathan Dorn, Curator of the Law Library of Congress. And this is a special segment for El Jardin, part of the Casa de Colores, and Nathan has laid out a number of very interesting books. What do we have Nathan? >> Nathan Dorn: Well, what I tried to do is I tried to bring out some samples from the Law Library's Hispanic law collection and I wanted to bring them out because they begin to hint at the richness and depth of our collection on this subject. Before I show you the items, I want to tell you about the beginning of our Hispanic law collection. The Law Library has been collecting books from foreign jurisdictions from its very origins in the beginning of the nineteenth century. But the main collecting activities of legal literature from foreign jurisdictions didn't really get underway until the middle of the nineteenth century. And the most important event for that beginning was the Mexican American War. The Mexican American War was a war that took place between 1846 and 1848. It was a contest especially over land and at the close of the war the United States found itself in possession of New Mexico, Arizona, California and basically an entire new continent to the west of its previous holdings in North America. So Congress realizing that that land until recently had been under jurisdictions whose historical roots lie in the Spanish Empire realized they would need to understand how property was regulated, how contracts were regulated, how the cities were regulated, and how the people understood themselves. So they required the Law Library of Congress to acquire law books from those jurisdictions especially Spain, the Spanish Empire, and Mexico until that date. So that was in 1848. They didn't actually allocate funds until 1854 but at that point the Library went out on a spending...on a shopping spree and eventually after several decades of collecting, we have many, many, many volumes that represent the entire history of, the entire early print history of Hispanic law about 1200 volumes until 1801. And these here represent some of the really priceless treasures in that collection. >> Herrera: Beautiful and what do we have up here? >> Dorn: Okay...the beginning of Hispanic law is shrouded somewhat in antiquity. We had at the fall of the Roman Empire, a small code of Roman law. That was the only code of Roman law that survived in unbroken tradition throughout the middle ages. And that was the Breviary of Alaric, which was a bit of Roman law, really roman not barbarian but it was in the hands of a Germanic tribe, eventually the Visigothic Tribe and over centuries it was adapted and changed and it becomes the basic, one of the primary documents of Hispanic Law, the Visigothic Code. It's published, is printed, for the first time very late 1550. We have it here in a 1579 edition. Already in this edition in Paris of Sebastian Nevellis, the Visigothic Code was very much an active law code throughout medieval Spain and it was eventually folded into a subsequent publication known as the Fuero juzgo which remained living Spanish law throughout history of the Spanish Empire in North America. >> Herrera: You know, now that you mention the Visigothic Code, what items or ideas come from, were adapted or adopted from the Visigothic Code into this particular book right here? >> Dorn: So this here is an imprint of the Visigothic Code. You can have a look inside. >> Herrera: It's a total imprint... >> Dorn: It is a total imprint of the Visigothic Code itself. And it contains all the provisions of that code and it's a fully functioning code with family law and inheritance law and other things that will help a kingdom run. Now, in Medieval Spain in the 13th century, King Alfonso the 10th required that a new publication of law come out that would incorporate not just the Roman law inheritance but also the customary law of the kingdom of Spain that was coming up through the Middle Ages. Now all the jurisdictions of Europe would eventually codify their customary law codes and this volume represents that codification, the 13th century codification of Spanish law into what's called the Siete Partidas. >> Herrera: Las Siete Partidas. >> Dorn: Siete Partidas. Now it's very important, crucially important publication in early Spanish law because while it's a 13th century document, it really became the basis of Spanish law for quite a long time with some competition from the Fuero juzgo which is the descendent of this, the Visigothic code. The Siete Partidas was imported to the Americas when the Spanish arrived and remained an integral part of the legal material, the basic legal references, of anybody who is working in the law throughout the Spanish speaking Americas for hundreds of years. Now to get the point across, so widespread was the use of the Siete Partidas, I will talk about this edition in a moment, that even after parts of America that were once under Spanish influence came to be states, here you have an 1820 volume from Louisiana. It's called Las Siete Partidas, those laws of Las Siete Partidas which are still in force in the State of Louisiana. >> Herrera: So that's what we were talking about a while ago and I was talking with Nathan and Nathan explained Las Siete Partidas and the Visigothic Code and then Louisiana. Why is it, how is it, that we get such laws can continue all the way to the present? What's going on, what's the power of these words, or what are the codes that are so important, so what makes them so long lasting? >> Dorn: Generally speaking law is very conservative and the reason it's very conservative is because people's, people's property and all their assets and all the arrangements by which they live their lives are tied up in the particular provisions that exist already on the books. And so nobody wants you to come in and totally revolutionize the legal system that you are sitting in because then what happens to all your rights, what happens to all of your holdings and in no case, even in the beginning of Spanish speaking settlement in North America and then in Anglo settlement in those same regions throughout the southwest was there such a revolution that everybody simply wanted to level whatever had been before. It just didn't happen. What happened instead was people wanted to receive what was already there to such a degree, whatever degree necessary, to preserve property rights and make sure that everyone who had something to lose could protect what they had. Okay, so... >> Herrera: That's very good. >> Dorn: So what we have here is Las Siete Partidas... >> Herrera: Las Siete Partidas. >> Dorn: ...in a 1491 edition from Seville. >> Herrera: ...from Seville,1491 >> Dorn: ...And so I promised you a little while ago that we would have a five hundred year old book. >> Herrera: Yes, you did. >> Dorn: So here's our five hundred year old book and it's a very beautiful pristine copy of that Las Siete Partidas which is such an important part of Spanish law in North America. >> Herrera: Five hundred years old. >> Dorn: Five hundred plus. >> Herrera: Five hundred plus and we go to... >> Dorn: Number 4. >> Herrera: Number 4. >> Dorn: Okay. >> Herrera: Let's go to number 4. >> Dorn: Okay, here we are. So let's skip ahead in time to Mexico. This is a really interesting book. It's widely understood to be the second law book printed in the New World. It's printed at the printing press of Pedro Ocharte who is the second printer operating in Mexico City. It's printed in 1565 and it's called the Cedulario de Puga and it's compiled by a man called Vasco de Puga who was a judge in the Audiencia which is the court of Mexico City. And what it contains is all those laws that govern Mexico City from 1528 to 1565 which is really the first stretch of Mexican history. >> Herrera: Yes it is. That's a lot of laws right there. >> Dorn: That's a lot of laws. Well it's not that many laws. It's just a little bit more, really it's just a l ittle bit more than the ordinances that control the city, because we're only beginning to control vast stretches of America under these laws. >> Herrera: That's right and do these laws also apply to indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica, Mexico City at that time? >> Dorn: Oh yes. Oh yes. This is the code that runs the nation state. So you have an idea that it has some beautiful illuminated initials. >> Herrera: They do. And this is one of the early, or the first, printing you said? >> Dorn: This is the first printing of the Cedulario de Puga, the official printing 1565. Okay. But before we leave Mexico City, let's not forget. >> Herrera: Oh, we almost forgot! We almost forgot! We had this prepared but we almost forgot. This is what's very interesting. You told me that this is a manual, a marriage manual and this is what, the custom, the laws? These are the laws that regulate what marriage is and how marriage can be maintained and how to define it. >> Dorn: Correct. >> Herrera: And more... >> Dorn: On all points, correct. Okay, so we haven't left Mexico City, in fact we are going backward in time. Here we have a book probably published in 1556, a few years earlier than the 1565 over here and it's published by the very first printer operating in the Americas. >> Herrera: That was the first printer that I was thinking about. >> Dorn: That's Juan Pablos. That's right. >> Herrera: What is the name of the printer? >> Dorn: Juan Pablos. >> Herrera: Just plain ol' Juan Pablos? >> Dorn: In fact he's Italian and he adopted a Spanish version of his name. >> Herrera: You didn't tell me that last time. >> Dorn: Oh no? Okay so here he is, he is living in Mexico City all the same. He's operating his printing press there from about 1539 until 1561, which is the time of his death which is only a few years after this. This is a very, this is perhaps the first book length printing in America. And so we have this beautiful book. It's the Speculum Coniugiorum like you were saying, that's the handbook of marriage relations and it's written by an Augustinian friar called Alonso de la Vera Cruz. And Vera Cruz lived from the beginning of the sixteenth century until sometime in the 1570s and I think, and he was remarkable because he was quite a philosophical genius. He studied at the University of Salamanca and was already appointed a lectureship which is a highly coveted position before he met some missionaries returning to Spain from the Americas who described to him the life there and what one could do in service of the church. And he just fell in love with the idea and the romance of it and he went off to America and very soon he was working among the Aztec Indians and the Tarascan Indians as a missionary. Now this work represents the culmination of many, many years of practical, on the ground experience converting native peoples and bringing them into the church. One of the big issues for converts is a different kinship structure, the kinship structure that you have under the canon law of the catholic church. >> Herrera: That's right. We were talking about that too, how converting the indigenous peoples through, by converting, one person in the family perhaps the father we can easily then convert the entire family and here is the handbook that is going to guide this new form of marriage and kinship system, inheritance, and all those things that go along with it. >> Dorn: Correct. >> Herrera: And so that's a very powerful book. >> Dorn: I think so, and it's not just a law book. It doesn't just tell you about the laws of marriage. It's also a book about...you know what I'm looking for...I'm looking for that beautiful diagram. It's also a book about the meaning of marriage as a sacrament and the theological significance to... that the marriage has. And so it's quite a remarkable book. It even includes a little bit of the, a little bit of detail about the life and marriage customs of the Tarascan Indians. >> Herrera: That's right. >> Dorn: So, here you have an interesting chart... >> Herrera: Show it to them, go ahead. So here we have a chart. >> Dorn: So this chart shows the degrees of family relationship, the ones, the degrees that measure how far one must be in the family tree from another before the two can marry. >> Herrera: It's right here. >> Dorn: According to Canon Law, you can't be too close, you must have a certain number of degrees between you and this helps you count and any two family members how many degrees apart they are. So this is an interesting chart. You will find it in a lot of books. >> Herrera: It kind of resembles some of those paintings that I have seen in the colonial period in Mexico that have kind of relationships to the notion of God. >> Dorn: It sounds mystical. >> Herrera: Yeah, it does and so this is kind of a lot of things going on in here. But it's good. I have never seen that, a diagram like that. >> Dorn: Oh, okay. >> Herrera: How about that. >> Dorn: So we have, some of the books in the Law Library were there is a little bit more of elaboration, the diagrams are like this but they branch out in seven directions, seven degrees in this way, seven degrees in this way, and the artists who create those diagrams take the opportunity to make them really special. >> Herrera: That's right. >> Dorn: And so that's something to see sometime. >> Herrera: Then you have more colors in there and everything. >> Dorn: Yeah. >> Herrera: ...the paint. >> Dorn: It's quite pretty. >> Herrera: It's beautiful. You have to look at that, it's amazing! >> Dorn: And so here we are in colonial Spain and... >> Herrera: Tell us about this man here. >> Dorn: This is a manuscript created by a man who's suffered some kind of insult. His rights weren't respected, and the rights that he presumed that he had as a member of the aristocracy. And so what one does if that happens is one goes to court to claim your right according to your privilege. And so happy was he that he vindicated his claim... >> Herrera: So he won the case. >> Dorn: Won the case...that he sat down and had somebody, probably not him, probably an expert, produce this beautiful manuscript, a just beautifully written manuscript documenting his claims. >> Herrera: His claims... >> Dorn: So here's this beautiful illumination. >> Herrera: It is and how old is this book? >> Dorn: From 1598. >> Herrera: 1598 and the case of a noble that wanted to make sure everybody knew that he indeed was a noble man or a member of the aristocracy. >> Dorn: Juan Gutierrez de Peralta. >> Herrera: Yeah...Juan Gutierrez de Peralta. >> Dorn: We don't want to forget this. In our conversation earlier, our conversation ranged all over the place, but one of the things that we spoke about was the destiny of some of the Spanish empire's holdings that would eventually become parts of the United States of America. And so I mentioned this item which is a really special item in the Law Library's collection. It's one of a kind, that is to say, we don't know of another copy of this item. It's a printed item so there should be other copies but we don't know of another existing copy. This one is, this is a batch of ordinances for Florida created in 1821. I think some people remember that Florida became part of the United States in part by filibuster. That is to say Andrew Jackson was permitted or ordered or permitted to go across the border from Georgia into Spanish Florida to rout the threat of some kind of incursion by Indians into Georgia. And what the entire factual background of that story is a matter for historians, but certainly Jackson entered Florida, put to rout the local Indians and took control of Florida. And these ordnances were promulgated just after that conquest. Now what you really liked, you remind me, is Ordnance Number 3. >> Herrera: Ordinance Number 3. >> Dorn: Ordinance Number 3 of these ordinances. >> Herrera: Here it is. Get ready everybody. >> Dorn: Alright. >> Herrera: I was pretty surprised when you told me about this and we looked at it. In effect, Andrew Jackson declared citizenship rights to all those at that moment in this land called Florida. >> Dorn: That's what happened. >> Herrera: And in a quick statement and a written declaration also, or a verbal statement only? >> Dorn: Well, he published some kind of ordinance as the territorial governor of the federal territory of Florida, and the ordinance that he published says this, Ordinance Number 3, an ordinance providing for the naturalization of inhabitants of the ceded territory by Major General Andrew Jackson, Governor of the Provinces of the Floridas exercising the powers of the Captain-General and the Intendant of the Island of Cuba over said Provinces and the Governors of said Provinces respectively. Okay, so the idea here is that simply by fiat, Andrew Jackson made the inhabitants of Florida citizens. Now I spoke with, off the record right, I spoke with a lawyer, an immigration lawyer who said well of course this is unconstitutional. And so the question immediately came up, right? What about the citizenship of all those Florida people, which of course was taken care of by the fourteenth amendment, no problem. They are all citizens, but certainly for a few years after this, it does raise a big question like what was the meaning of this, how much validity could it have had, what was the legal background that he was able to make this proclamation, or not. >> Herrera: That's right. >> Dorn: Anyway, it's a great little story. >> Herrera: And we have it here. >> Dorn: Yes, we do. >> Herrera: And of course this brings up so many things. It kind of brings up the power of laws, the role that laws played and how they're made and how they unfold through time as we notice with Las Siete Partidas and Spain and Mexico and New Orleans, the unfolding of those laws and adaptation and assimilation of those laws and how words and letters and writing, how important they are, how powerful they are, and with illumination manuscripts proving the honor of a noble person, nobleman, and the aristocracy and how these are available, and in many ways in how we don't really know they're available in many cases and we have them here at the Library of Congress... >> Dorn: We sure do... >> Herrera: ...in the Law Library of Congress. And what do you think would be good? Let me see, I'm thinking out loud with Nathan right now. I want everybody, we want all of you to think about these beautiful books and you know they're ancient in some ways, five hundred years. That's a long time. And they go back in time, the Visigoths, Spain, and Mesoamerica, and Mexico, and conquests, and the rules of marriage, the laws that govern our lives, and citizenship, and books. So, I want you to think about all these things, about writing, and indeed it is powerful. And indeed, we create our societies and follow our lives, and in many ways, shape our lives with these materials and these voices, and these studies, and these laws and rules and marriage and family. What are those things...how to guide ourselves. How to guide ourselves. >> Dorn: That's what we do here. >> Herrera: We were talking about that, how to guide our lives. And we do have rules and yet there's room for creativity and interpretation. That's what it is. >> Dorn: That's true. >> Herrera: Yes, so let's interpret and let's create. Thanks so much, Nathan. >> Dorn: It's a pleasure. >> Herrera: Thank you so much. I learned a lot. >> Dorn: Me, too! >> Herrera: I am going to have to read these books. >> Dorn: Good luck. >> Herrera: Thanks a lot, that was great. >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.