Early Representative Government

1. Early Representative Government

2. Introduction • As defined, a colony is a group of people who leave their native country to form a community in a new land. • The harsh reality is, there are many understandings that needed to be worked out prior to people leaving their homeland: • Shelter • Food source • Protection • “Who” is going to do “what” in the community? Who is management and who is the work force?

3. Community • So the issue at hand is, how does the community get along? There has to be some set of rules or guidelines to follow. People have to agree and follow through the established rules or agreements or they will not survive! • This is what we are going to look at: • What type of rules or government did the colonists come from, what were they use to • What type of agreements, rules or self-government was established with the colonies? • What type of government were the Native Americans using which might have an influence on the colonists as an example?

4. English Governments Monarchy A monarchy is a form of government in which sovereignty is actually embodied in a single individual (the King or Queen). The Magna Carta The Magna Carta was a document signed by King John in 1215 that limits the power of rulers and established basic human rights Church Authority In the 16th century, religious life was an important part of the cement which held society together and formed an important basis for extending and consolidating political power. Keep in mind that there was also a significant amount of religious unrest.

5. Mercantilism Mercantilism Mercantilism stipulates that in order to build economic strength, a nation must export more than it imports. To achieve this favorable balance of trade, the English passed regulatory laws exclusively benefiting the British economy. These laws created a trade system whereby Americans provided raw goods to Britain, and Britain used the raw goods to produce manufactured goods that were sold in European markets and back to the colonies.

6. Colonial Governments Charter Colonies Charter colonies came the closest to being self-governing. When created, the British King granted the colonies a charter establishing the rules of government, but he allowed the colonists a great amount of latitude within those rules. Proprietary A proprietary colony is where an individual or group essentially owned the colony, controlling all of the actions and institutions of government. Pennsylvania, in fact, still takes its name from its first proprietary governor, William Penn. Royal Colonies A Royal colony was one that was directly controlled by the Crown. The governments were appointed by the Crown, and carried out the orders and wishes of the Crown, not private or local interests.

7. Mayflower Compact Mayflower Compact In basic terms, the Mayflower Compact was a social contract whereby the forty-one men who signed it agreed to abide by the new government's laws in exchange for shared protection. The fact that it was a covenant whereby the settlers would subordinate their rights to follow laws passed by the government to ensure protection and survival made it a unique document. As previously stated, it set a precedent and was indeed an influential document for the founding fathers as they created the US Constitution.

8. House of Burgesses Virginia House of Burgesses During the 1610s, the small English colony at Jamestown was essentially a failure. Fearful of losing their investment, the officers of the Virginia Company of London embarked upon a series of reforms designed to attract more people to the troubled settlement. They began by ending the company monopoly on land ownership, believing that the colonists would display greater initiative if they had an ownership position in the venture. Company officials also made justice in Virginia more predictable by adopting English common law as the basis of their system, which replaced the whims of the governor as the final voice on legal matters. In July 1619, a meeting of the House of Burgesses was held in Jamestown, the first such assembly in the Americas.

9. Great Indian Law of Peace • League of Nations (Great Indian) Law • Each of the five great Iroquois Nations banded together to form the League of Nations.  • Central Government • Written Constitution. • Council • Debates. • Votes • Unanimous Decisions

10. United States Constitution To better analyze the similarities and differences between the Great Law of Peace and the U.S. Constitution, a project began in 1980 to organize the two documents in two columns showing the parallel passages side by side. The comparison clearly illustrated similarities and differences in the two founding documents. In 1987, the evidence was submitted as testimony before U.S. Senate hearings on the origins of the Constitution. For the first time in history, Congress officially recognized that the U.S. government was "explicitly modeled" after the Iroquois Confederacy (Congressional Record, 1987).