The House of Burgesses: America's First Elected Assembly

On July 30, 1619, twenty two elected burgesses gathered in a small wooden church at Jamestown for the first meeting of a representative legislature in English America. Sent to replace years of martial law and famine, Governor Sir George Yeardley and the assembly spent six sweltering days setting rules on land, tobacco, and their own membership, even asking that London govern only with their consent. Weeks later, the same colony received its first recorded African captives.Send me a text!Support the show