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Conceived in Liberty Companion · Volume I, chapter 3 · 30 July 1619

The first Virginia General Assembly · The quire of the timber church at Jamestown, Virginia

America’s first elected voice

What changes when people can elect lawmakers, but a governor and company still hold power?

Men in dark doublets and white collars stand bareheaded in wooden pews inside a small timber church, heads bowed, while a seated man at the far end faces a minister in a white surplice, daylight slanting through small windows.
Modern AI-assisted reconstruction. Jamestown, 30 July 1619. In the quire of the timber church, some twenty burgesses stand bareheaded in their pews while the minister prays. Governor Yeardley sits in his chair before them. It is the first representative assembly in America. Rothbard says it came hand in hand with the milder laws, part and parcel of easing the Virginia Company’s old tyranny. Chapter 3 of Conceived in Liberty.

Before this scene

Virginia was governed by a company whose earlier rules, known as Dale’s Laws, imposed severe punishments. Governor George Yeardley introduced a milder code before the assembly met. In 1619, elected burgesses, meaning representatives from the colony’s settlements, joined the governor and his council to make laws. Their meeting did not remove the governor’s veto or the company’s authority. Representation created another voice inside an existing system of power; it did not give the assembly unlimited independence. [1] [2]

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The story, from several sources

This account blends Rothbard’s chapter with the other sources listed below and has not yet been separated into Rothbard’s own account and the fuller story. Read Rothbard’s chapter 3 for his account.

On 30 July 1619 Governor Sir George Yeardley opened the first General Assembly of Virginia in the quire of the timber church at Jamestown, the most convenient room the colony had. John Pory, the Speaker, described the scene: the governor in his chair, the Council beside him, the Speaker before him, and the elected burgesses in their pews, two from each of eleven plantations, until Mr. Buck the minister prayed that God would guide their proceedings. Virginia had lived for years under the Company’s brutal Dale’s Laws. The milder code was already in hand, Yeardley’s Great Charter of November 1618, and Rothbard treats the Assembly as the other half of the same turn: “The introduction of representation thus went hand in hand with the new policy of liberalizing the laws” (CiL, p. 51). The burgesses sat six days, to 4 August, and made laws for the colony. Not all of them were liberal. Rothbard notes that they fixed the price of tobacco and ordered “inferior” leaf burned. The governor kept his veto and the Company’s orders still bound the colony. But Virginians now had an elected voice in their own laws, and they would raise it again against a royal governor in 1676 and against the king in 1776.

Why it matters

Interpretation: An elected assembly can constrain some forms of power while exercising others. Consider both who gains a voice and what that voice can decide. [1] [2]

Examine and discuss

  1. Which authorities remained above the elected burgesses?
  2. How does the regulation of tobacco complicate the idea that representation necessarily produces freedom?
  3. What further evidence would you need to decide how broadly this assembly represented the colony?

About the reconstruction

This is an AI-assisted adaptive companion inspired by Murray N. Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty. It draws on sources beyond the book and is not Rothbard’s original text or a condensation of it. Each scene identifies whether its narration combines sources or separates an account of the book from additional context.

The sources establish the event and accounts of it. The painting’s poses, expressions, lighting, and arrangement are artistic choices rather than a surviving visual record.

Details to notice

  1. The men stand in pews while a minister holds an open book. Pory records the opening prayer and the burgesses’ places; the book’s appearance and the men’s expressions are reconstruction.
  2. The governor sits facing the room, with seated officers nearby. Pory records the arrangement of governor, council, and Speaker; the picture supplies their individual faces and clothing.
  3. A wooden barrier crosses the foreground. Pory mentions a bar, but the exact furnishings and the warm window light are reconstructed.

Suggest a correction to this companion scene. Notes about the original book are recorded separately.

Full sources and reuse information

Sources

  1. Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2011 single-volume ed.), vol. I, ch. 3, pp. 43-54. CC BY 3.0. Rothbard
  2. John Pory, ‘A Reporte of the manner of proceeding in the General assembly convened at James city’, 30 July to 4 August 1619 (National Archives, Kew, CO 1/1), transcribed in Encyclopedia Virginia, ‘The General Assembly Convenes (1619)’ and by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. Primary source
  3. Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation, ‘The 1617 Church Site’ and ‘History of the 1617 Church’, Historic Jamestowne (accessed 2026-09-29). Secondary source
  4. Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation, ‘The Virtual 1617 Church’, Historic Jamestowne (accessed 2026-09-29): close-studded frame, chairs and a table in the chancel, pews in the quire, a bar, benches, bell tower. Secondary source
  5. Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, ‘Historical Clothing’ (accessed 2026-09-29): doublets, breeches, falling bands, linen cuffs; 1622 outfit list with falling bands and Monmouth caps. Secondary source

Download the painting, full size (JPEG)

Painting and companion additions: CC BY 4.0, credit freecapitalists.org. How to credit.

Adapted from Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Mises Institute, 2011), CC BY 3.0. External sources retain their own terms.

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