Four corporations were to be created, with Kecoughtan, Jamestown, Charles City, and Henrico as capital cities in each, respectively; and it was announced that thereafter the people of the colony were to share with the company in the making of laws.[7] Accordingly, July 30, 1619, the first legislative assembly that ever convened on the American continent met in the church at Jamestown.

It consisted of the governor, six councillors, and twenty burgesses, two from each of ten plantations.

The delegates from Brandon, Captain John Martin's plantation, were not seated, because of a particular clause in his patent exempting it from colonial authority.

The assembly, after a prayer from Rev.Richard Buck, of Jamestown, sat six days and did a great deal of work.

Petitions were addressed to the company in England for permission to change "the savage name of Kecoughtan," for workmen to erect a "university and college," and for granting the girls and boys of all the old planters a share of land each, "because that in a new plantation it is not known whether man or woman be the more necessary." Laws were made against idleness, drunkenness, gaming, and other misdemeanors, but the death penalty was prescribed only in case of such "traitors to the colony" as sold fire-arms to the Indians.