The Virginia House of Burgesses /ˈbÉœrdÊ'É™sɪz/ was the first legislative assembly of elected representatives in North America. The House was established by the Virginia Company, who created the body as part of an effort to encourage English craftsmen to settle in North America and to make conditions in the colony more agreeable for its current inhabitants.
The word "Burgess" means an elected or appointed official of a municipality, or the representative of a borough in the English House of Commons.
Early Years
The Colony of Virginia was founded by an English stock company, the Virginia Company, as a private venture, though under a royal charter. Early governors provided the stern leadership and harsh judgments required for the colony to survive its early difficulties. As early crises with famine, disease, Indian attacks, the need to establish a cash crop and insufficient skilled or committed labor subsided, the colony needed to attract enough new and responsible settlers if it was to grow and prosper.
To encourage settlers to come to Virginia, in 1618-1619, the Virginia Company's leaders drew up a great charter. Emigrants who paid their own way to Virginia would receive fifty acres of land. They would not be mere tenants. Civil authority would control the military. A council of burgesses, representatives chosen by the inhabitants of the colony for their government, would be convened as the House of Burgesses. The governor could veto their actions and the company still had overall control of the venture, but the settlers would have a say in their own government, including the right of the House of Burgesses to introduce money bills.
A handful of Polish craftsmen, brought to the colony to supply skill in the manufacture of pitch, tar, potash, and soap ash, were initially denied the political rights of English settlers. They downed tools in protest, but returned to work after being declared free (probably in the sense of civil liberty) and enfranchised, apparently by agreement with the Virginia Company.
First session
On July 30, 1619, the first European-style legislative assembly in the Americas convened for a six-day meeting at the church on Jamestown Island, Virginia. A council chosen by the Virginia Company as advisers to the governor, the Virginia Governor's Council, met as a sort of "upper house," while 22 elected representatives met as the House of Burgesses. Together, the House of Burgesses and the Council would be the Virginia General Assembly.
The House's first session of July 30, 1619, accomplished little. It was cut short by an outbreak of malaria. The assembly had 22 members from the following constituencies: James City (Captain William Powell, Ensign William Spense), Charles City (Sergeant Samuel Sharpe, Samuel Jordan), the City of Henricus (Thomas Dowse, John Polentine or Plentine), Kicoughtan (Captain William Tucker, William Capps), Martin-Brandon (Captain John Martin's Plantation) (Thomas Davis, Robert Stacy), Smythe's Hundred (Captain Thomas Graves, Walter Shelley), Martin's Hundred (John Boys, John Jackson), Argall's Gift Plantation (Thomas Pawlett, Edward Gourgainy), Flowerdew (or Flowerdieu) Hundred Plantation (Ensign Edmund Rossingham, John Jefferson), Captain Lawne's Plantation (Captain Christopher Lawne, Ensign Washer), and Captain Ward's Plantation (Captain John Warde or Ward, Lieutenant John Gibbs or Gibbes).
Later 17th century
Especially after the massacre of about 400 colonists on March 22, 1622 by Native Americans, and epidemics in the winters before and after the massacre, the governor and council ruled arbitrarily and allowed no dissent. By 1624, the royal government in London had heard enough about the problems of the colony and revoked the charter of the Virginia Company. Virginia became a crown colony and the governor and council would be chosen by the king. Nonetheless, the basic form of government of the colony was retained, although the right of the General Assembly to exist was not officially confirmed until 1639.
In 1634, the General Assembly divided the colony into eight shires (later redesignated as counties) for purposes of government, administration, and the judicial system. By 1643, the expanding colony had 15 counties. All of the county offices, including a board of commissioners, judges, sheriff, constable and clerks, were appointed positions. Only the members of the House of Burgesses were elected by a vote of the people. Women had no right to vote. While all free men originally were given the right to vote, by 1670 only property owners were allowed to vote.
In 1652, the parliamentary forces of Oliver Cromwell forced the colony to submit to their takeover of the English government. Again, the colonists were able to retain the General Assembly as their governing body. Only taxes agreed to by the assembly were to be levied. Still, most Virginia colonists were loyal to Prince Charles, and were pleased at his restoration as King Charles II in 1660. He went on directly or indirectly to restrict some of the liberties of the colonists, such as requiring tobacco to be shipped only to England, only on English ships, with the price set by the English merchant buyers; but the General Assembly remained.
A majority of the members of the General Assembly of 1676 were supporters of Nathaniel Bacon. They enacted legislation designed to further popular sovereignty and representative government and to equalize opportunities. Bacon took little part in the deliberations since he was busy fighting the Native Americans.
The statehouse in Jamestown burned down for the fourth time on October 20, 1698. The House of Burgesses met temporarily in Middle Plantation, 11 miles (18Â km) inland from Jamestown, and then in 1699 permanently moved the capital of the colony to Middle Plantation, which they renamed Williamsburg.
Moving toward independence
Though not a unique occurrence on the frontier, colonists remained loyal to the British crown during the French and Indian War in North America from 1754 to 1763. Despite its beginnings in Europe between Great Britain and France, it resulted in local colonial losses and economic disruption. Higher taxes were to follow, and adverse local reactions to these and how they were determined would drive events well into the next decade.
In 1764, desiring revenue from its North American colonies, Parliament passed the first law specifically aimed at raising colonial money for the Crown. The Sugar Act increased duties on non-British goods shipped to the colonies. The same year, the Currency Act prohibited American colonies from issuing their own currency. These angered many American colonists and began colonial opposition with protests. By the end of the year, many colonies were practicing non-importation, a refusal to use imported English goods. In 1765 the British Quartering Act, which required the colonies to provide barracks and supplies to British troops, further angered American colonists; and to raise more money for Britain, Parliament enacted the Stamp Act on the American colonies, to tax newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, broadsides, legal documents, dice, and playing cards. American colonists responded to Parliament's acts with organized protest throughout the colonies. A network of secret organizations known as the Sons of Liberty was created to intimidate the stamp agents collecting the taxes, and before the Stamp Act could take effect, all the appointed stamp agents in the colonies had resigned. The Massachusetts Assembly suggested a meeting of all colonies to work for the repeal of the Stamp Act, and all but four colonies were represented. The colonists also increased their non-importation efforts, and sought to increase in local production.
In May 1765, Patrick Henry presented a series of resolves that became known as the Virginia Resolves, denouncing the Stamp Act and denying the authority of the British parliament to tax the colonies, since they were not represented by elected members of parliament. Newspapers around the colonies published all his resolves, even the most radical ones which had not been passed by the assembly.
In 1769 the Virginia House of Burgesses passed several resolutions condemning Britain's stationing troops in Boston following the Massachusetts Circular Letter of the previous year; these resolutions stated that only Virginia's governor and legislature could tax its citizens. The members also drafted a formal letter to the King, completing it just before the legislature was dissolved by Virginia's royal governor.
In 1774 the First Continental Congress passed their Declaration and Resolves, which inter alia claimed that American colonists were equal to all other British citizens, protested against taxation without representation, and stated that Britain could not tax the colonists since they were not represented in Parliament.
Meeting places
In 1619, the House of Burgesses first met in the church in Jamestown. Subsequent meetings continued to take place in Jamestown.
In 1699, the seat of the House of Burgesses was moved from Jamestown to Middle Plantation, soon renamed Williamsburg. The Burgesses met there, first (1700 to 1704) in the Great Hall of what is now called the Wren Building at the College of William and Mary, while the Capitol was under construction. When the Capitol burned in 1747, the legislature moved back into the College until the second Capitol was completed in 1754. The present Capitol at Colonial Williamsburg is a reconstruction of the earlier of the two lost Capitol buildings.
In 1779, and effective in April 1780, the House of Delegates moved the capital city to Richmond during the American Revolutionary War for safety reasons.
Legacy
The House of Burgesses became the House of Delegates in 1776, forming the lower house of the General Assembly, the legislative branch of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
In honor of the original House of Burgesses, every other year, the Virginia General Assembly traditionally leaves the current Capitol in Richmond, and meets for one day in the restored Capitol building at Colonial Williamsburg.
In January 2007, the Assembly held a special session at Jamestown to mark the 400th anniversary of its founding as part of the Jamestown 2007 celebration including an address by then-vice president Dick Cheney.