Virginia’s House of Burgesses Was First Elected Assembly in North America

From 1643 to 1776, mostly in Williamsburg, VA, the landmark beginnings of representative democracy functioned in the colony’s first state capital, called the House of Burgesses. Elected burgesses actually started meeting with the royal governor as early as 1619, when it was clear the colony at Jamestown, established in 1607, would survive, after on-agai…