The House of Burgesses and The Mayflower Compact

Just like the Magna Carta had allowed English landowners meetings with their leaders for consultation in local matters,

Members of the House of Burgesses would meet at least once a year with their royal governor to decide local laws and determine local taxation

The first assembly met on July 30, 1619, in the church at Jamestown. Burgesses were elected representatives

Only white men who owned a specific amount of property were eligible to vote

Like the Virginia House of Burgesses established in 1619, Plymouth colony began to lay the foundation for democracy in the American colonies

This independent attitude set up a tradition of self-rule that would later lead to town meetings and elected legislatures in New England

starting with the Virginia House of Burgesses, Americans had 157 years to practice democracy

by the time of the Declaration of Independence, they were quite good at it

The tradition established by the House of Burgesses was extremely important to colonial development

each new English colony demanded its own legislature in turn

The Mayflower Compact is an example of Social Compact because

it organized the signers into a "civil body politic," or a government

Martial Law

rule imposed by military forces

The House of Burgesses was modeled after

the English Parliament

The first legislative assembly in the American colonies

the House of Burgesses

In the landmark Mayflower Compact of 1620

the Pilgrims decided that they would rule themselves, based on majority rule of the townsmen

In April, 1619, Governor George Yeardley arrived in Virginia from England and announced that

the Virginia Company had voted to abolish martial law and create a legislative assembly

King James, a believer in the divine right of monarchs, attempted to dissolve the assembly, but

the Virginians continued to meet on a yearly basis to decide local matters

Despite the fact that English kings usually claimed the exclusive right to decide the fate of their colonies, the case with the Virginia House of Burgesses shows that

the colonists drew upon their claims to traditional English rights and insisted on raising their own representative assemblies

Government

the organization that makes and enforces the laws