1774 ANNAPOLIS IMPRINT. First American Legal Work to Discuss Wills & Heritability of Enslaved Persons

A rather nice example of Elie Vallette’s The Deputy Commissary's Guide Within the Province of Maryland (1774), a landmark publication in early American printing, slave law, legal history, and colonial craftsmanship.

The text was the first original American treatise on wills and probate, making it the earliest text dedicated to estate law written and published in the American colonies. Prior to its publication, colonial legal practitioners and testators relied almost exclusively on imported British legal guides. Written by Vallette, the registrar of the Maryland Prerogative Office, the manual provided standardized precedents, instructions for executing wills, and administrative forms for settlement of estates in Maryland.

This also had the effect of making it the first American work to discuss the estate status and heritability of enslaved people. The text, in three different sections, discusses the administrative frameworks for how chattel slavery operated within estate law. In colonial Maryland, enslaved human beings were legally classified as personal property (chattel) rather than real estate. The guide laid out precise procedures for appraising, inventorying, and distributing enslaved people among heirs to settle debts or carry out remainders in wills; again, the first such imprint written and published in America. By institutionalizing the legal methods by which enslaved individuals were passed down through generations or sold off during estate liquidations, Vallette's guide codified the generational transmission of wealth built upon human bondage and reinforced the legally sanctioned enforceability of inherited enslavement.

As a print artifact, the book is also significant as the work of female printer, Anne Catherine Green. Following the death of her husband Jonas Green in 1767, Green took over the shop and became the official Public Printer for the Province of Maryland, making her one of the earliest female printers and publishers in colonial America. Known for her high technical standards, efficiency, and business acumen, she successfully operated the press, printed the colonial currency, published the Maryland Gazette, and produced complex major volumes like Vallette's guide.

As a final embellishment, quite literally, to the work's significance, the engraving is credited to Thomas Sparrow. Sparrow was an apprentice of Jonas Green and stands as the only known wood-engraver and copperplate engraver active in Maryland, and south of the Mason-Dixon Line, prior to the American Revolution. His contribution to this book, an elaborately engraved copperplate title page and an accompanying table of descents, represents the only copperplate engraved title page ever produced by a colonial Maryland press.

Vallette, Elie. Register of the Prerogative Office of the Said Province. The Deputy Commssary's Guide within the Province of Maryland. Together with plain and sufficient directions for Testators to form, and Executors to perform their Wills and Testaments; for administrators to compleat their Administrations, and for every Person any way concerned in deceased Person's Estates, to proceed therein with Safety to themselves and others. Annapolis, Printed by Ann Catherine Green and Son. MD CCLXXIV [1774]. Thomas Sparrow Sculpt. 248pp + index. 

Good + in a quality, perhaps mid-20th century, quarter calf bindng. Some spotting to prelims as shown, a bit handled and some scattered foxing and minor evidence of dampness at some point. Else, generally quite good, crisp, and clean. Scarce in any condition.