To the burgesses, as the representatives of the people, was handed over the supreme power of thereafter electing all officers of the colony.[38] Then Virginia, the last of the British dominions to abandon the king, entered upon eight years of almost complete self-government, under the protection of the commonwealth of England.
In 1652 the settlements in Virginia were embraced in thirteen counties, of which Northampton, on the Accomack Peninsula, extended to the southern boundary of Maryland.

On the James River were nine counties: Henrico, Charles City, James City, Surry, Warwick, Warascoyack, or Isle of Wight, Elizabeth City, Nansemond, and Lower Norfolk.

On York River were York County on the south side and Gloucester on the north side.[39] On the Rappahannock was Lancaster County, extending on both sides of the river from Pianketank to Dividing Creek in the Northern Neck; and on the Potomac was the county of Northumberland, first settled about 1638 at Chicacoan and Appomattox on the Potomac, by refugees from Maryland.[40] Towards the south the plantations, following the watercourses, had spread to the heads of the creeks and rivers, tributaries of the James, and some persons more adventurous than the rest had even made explorations in North Carolina.[41] Westward the extension was, of course, greatest along the line of the James, reaching as far as the Falls where Richmond now stands.

The population was probably about twenty thousand, of whom as many as five thousand were white servants and five hundred were negroes.
The houses throughout the colony were generally of wood, a story and a half high, and were roofed with shingles.

The chimneys were of brick, and the wealthier people lived in houses constructed wholly of home-made brick.[42] "They had, besides, good English furniture" and a "good store of plate." By ordinary labor at making tobacco any person could clear annually L20 sterling, the equivalent of $500 to-day.