An important attraction for liberty-loving Englishmen to come to Virginia in the 1620s was the creation of a representative assembly to assist in the governing of the colony. Twenty-two elected delegates or burgesses convened with new governor Sir George Yeardley and his advisory Council of State on 30 July 1619 in the wooden Jamestown church to discuss company rules and enact laws of governance that prohibited gambling, drunkenness, swearing, and idleness. The assembly was not intended to be a miniature Parliament; legislation required the approval of the governor and the council, which limited its power. Nevertheless, the General Assembly or House of Burgesses was the first elected representative body in the New World, establishing the principle of self-government that would be a hallmark of the American experiment.
Further Reading
Warren Billings, A Little Parliament: The Virginia General Assembly in the Seventeenth Century.
This Vignette Provided By
Ronald Heinemann and Anthony Parent
