11 nov 1620 - House of Burgesses and the Mayflower Compact

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Although the colonies were all originally connected to the Motherland, England , they started with a sense of representative government since their establishments. In Virginia, the House of Burgesses was the first representative assembly in America that would give colonists representation in the lawmaking process, just as they had in England. It was a template for future representative assemblies in other colonies. Another way in which the colonists in Virginia had worked to establish a representative government within their duties to the English crown, was through the signing of the Mayflower Compact aboard the Mayflower. The Mayflower Compact was a form of colonial self-government and a rudimentary written constitution. It established the idea that decisions would be made by the will of the majority, or by majority in a vote wins. Although such early political institutions were established to prevent autocratic rule in the colonies, they caused conflicts as they made limits to colonial democracy. This demonstrates how the social classes were divided politically, and how politics were set with the whites ruling without limits. It additionally shows how progress towards a democratic style of government were backtracked by antidemocratic practices like slavery.

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