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Jamestown, the first English settlement in the United States, was founded in 1607. The story of the early colonists during the first twelve years is a record of continuous misfortune; it is a story of oppressive government, of severe hardships, of famine, and Indian massacre. After languishing under such distressful conditions, the colony was reinforced with emigrants and supplies, the despotic governor, Argall, was displaced, and the mild and popular Sir George Yeardley was made captain-general. He arrived in April, 1619, and under the instructions he had received “for the better establishing of a commonwealth,” he issued a proclamation “that those cruel laws, by which the planters had so long been governed, were now abrogated, and that they were to be governed by those free laws which his majesty’s subjects lived under in England. That the planters might have a hand in the governing of themselves, it was granted that a general assembly should be held yearly, whereat were to be present the governor and council, with two burgesses from each plantation, freely to be elected by the inhabitants thereof, this assembly to have power to make and ordain whatsoever laws and orders should by them be thought good and profitable for their subsistence.”

In conformity with this “charter of rights and liberties,” summonses were sent out to hold elections of burgesses, and on July 30, 1619, delegates from each of the eleven plantations assembled at Jamestown. Under this administrative change, this inauguration of legislative power, salutary enactments were adopted, and the new representatives proved their capacity and their readiness to meet their responsibilities. It was the first legislative assembly in America, the beginning of self-government in the English colonies.