They, together with the royally appointed Governor and six-member Council of State, would form the first General Assembly as a unicameral body.

[4] The governor could veto its actions and the Company still maintained overall control of the venture, but the settlers would have a limited say in the management of their own affairs, including their finances.

[citation needed] 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 full political rights.

They downed their tools in protest but returned to work after being declared free and enfranchised, apparently by agreement with the Virginia Company.

The unicameral Assembly was composed of the Governor, a Council of State appointed by the Virginia Company, and the 22 locally elected representatives.

[4] In 1634, the General Assembly divided the colony into eight shires (later renamed counties) for purposes of government, administration, and the judicial system.

All of the county offices, including a board of commissioners, judges, sheriff, constable, and clerks, were appointed positions.

[4] In 1642, Governor William Berkeley urged the creation of a bicameral legislature which the Assembly promptly implemented; the House of Burgesses was thus formed and met separately from the Council of State.

[17] In 1691, the House of Burgesses abolished the enslavement of Native peoples; however, many Powhatans were held in servitude well into the 18th century.

[19] The French and Indian War in North America from 1754 to 1763 resulted in local colonial losses and economic disruption.

[21] 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.

[citation needed] From 1769–1775 Thomas Jefferson represented Albemarle County as a delegate in the Virginia House of Burgesses.

Jefferson persuaded his cousin Richard Bland to spearhead the legislation's passage, but the reaction was strongly negative.

[30][page needed] The members also drafted a formal letter to the King, completing it just before the legislature was dissolved by Virginia's royal governor.

[33] The burgesses formed a Committee of Safety to take over governance in the absence of the royal governor, Dunmore, who had organized loyalists forces but after defeats, he took refuge on a British warship.

"[35] Edmund Pendleton, a member of the House of Burgesses (and President of the Committee of Safety) who was present at the final meeting, wrote in a letter to Richard Henry Lee on the following day, "We met in an assembly yesterday and determined not to adjourn, but let that body die."

Later on the same morning, the members of the fifth and final Virginia Revolutionary Convention met in the chamber of the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg and elected Pendleton its president.

[38] 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.

[citation needed] 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.