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The House of Burgesses (/ ˈ b ɜːr dʒ ə s ɪ z /) was the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly from 1619 to 1776. It existed during the colonial history of the United States when Virginia was a British colony .
The Burgesses, convened as the First Convention, met on August 1, 1774, and elected officers, banned commerce and payment of debts with Britain, and pledged supplies. They elected Peyton Randolph, the Speaker of the House of Burgesses, as the President of the convention (a position he held for subsequent conventions until his death in October ...
It was initially a unicameral body composed of the Company-appointed Governor and Council of State, plus 22 burgesses elected by the settlements and Jamestown. [8] The Assembly became bicameral in 1642 upon the formation of the House of Burgesses. The Assembly had a judicial function of hearing cases both original and appellate. [9]
House of Burgesses chamber inside the Capitol building at Colonial Williamsburg. The lower house of a colonial legislature was a representative assembly. These assemblies were called by different names. Virginia had a House of Burgesses, Massachusetts had a House of Deputies, and South Carolina had a Commons House of Assembly.
Burgesses were originally freeman inhabitants of a city in which they owned land and who contributed to the running of the town and its taxation. The title of burgess was later restricted to merchants and craftsmen, so that only burgesses could enjoy the privileges of trading or practising a craft in the city through belonging to a guild (by holding a guild ticket) or were able to own ...
The Virginia Slave Codes of 1705 (formally entitled An act concerning Servants and Slaves), were a series of laws enacted by the Colony of Virginia's House of Burgesses in 1705 regulating the interactions between slaves and citizens of the crown colony of Virginia.
Randolph, who was a delegate to the Continental Congress, returned to Williamsburg to take his place as Speaker. The House of Burgesses rejected the proposal, which was also later rejected by the Continental Congress. [3] The burgesses met in conventions that served as a revolutionary provisional government for Virginia. Randolph served as the ...
The following is the original text of the Virginia Resolves as adopted by the House of Burgesses on May 29, 1765: [3]. Resolved, that the first adventurers and settlers of His Majesty's colony and dominion of Virginia brought with them and transmitted to their posterity, and all other His Majesty's subjects since inhabiting in this His Majesty's said colony, all the liberties, privileges ...