8th Grade US History Practice Test

This question tests your understanding of the beginnings of self-government in the English colonies. In 1619, settlers in Jamestown established an assembly of elected representatives known as the Virginia House of Burgesses. This was the first time colonists chose people to represent them in making laws and decisions about taxes, separate from the governor and his council. It signaled a move toward representative government and set a pattern that would influence later colonial legislatures and, ultimately, American democratic ideals. Other options don’t fit this event: the Continental Congress formed much later, in 1774, as a united body to coordinate resistance to Britain; the Mayflower Compact was a short-lived early agreement among settlers, not an ongoing legislative body; the House of Lords is part of England’s national Parliament, not a colonial assembly in America.