Council and House of Burgesses were to constitute the upper and lower houses of the General Assembly.
The whole had power to legislate upon Virginian affairs within the bounds of the colony, but the Governor in Virginia and the Company in England must approve its acts.
A mighty hope in small was here! Hedged about with provisions, curtailed and limited, here nevertheless was an acorn out of which, by natural growth and some mutation, was to come popular government wide and deep.
The planting of this small seed of freedom here, in 1619, upon the banks of the James in Virginia, is an event of prime importance.
On the 30th of July, 1619, there was convened in the log church in Jamestown the first true Parliament or Legislative Assembly in America.
Twenty-two burgesses sat, hat on head, in the body of the church, with the Governor and the Council in the best seats.

Master John Pory, the speaker, faced the Assembly; clerk and sergeant-at-arms were at hand; Master Buck, the Jamestown minister, made the solemn opening prayer.
The political divisions of this Virginia were Cities, Plantations, and Hundreds, the English population numbering now at least a thousand souls.

Boroughs sending burgesses were James City, Charles City, the City of Henricus, Kecoughtan, Smith's Hundred, Flowerdieu Hundred, Martin's Hundred, Martin Brandon, Ward's Plantation, Lawne's Plantation, and Argall's Gift.

This first Assembly attended to Indian questions, agriculture, and religion.
Most notable is this year 1619, a year wrought of gold and iron.

John Rolfe, back in Virginia, though without his Indian princess, who now lies in English earth, jots down and makes no comment upon what he has written: "About the last of August came in a Dutch man of warre that sold us twenty Negars." No European state of that day, few individuals, disapproved of the African slave trade.