This house was established in 1619, and was the first elected
assembly in colonial America.
In 1619, the first twenty Africans arrived in Virginia on a vessel belonging to this nation. This colony, named after an English catholic Queen who gained a reputation for killing Protestants, was established in 1632 as a refuge for English Catholics. This system was developed by the Virginia Company to incentivize bringing people to the colony. It said that anyone who paid his or her way, or paid the way of another, would receive 50 acres of land. Fearing for the success of the colony, this person established martial law in Jamestown in 1607. In English thought, Individual liberty was secured by owning this good. A person whose passage to the New World was paid for by another, and who was then expected to work for the benefactor for a given number of years, was known as: English