Dan Bonevac on the Significance of the Year 1619 in American History

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]There were two other things that really were in my view much more important than 1619. If somebody says 1619 was a fundamental year, I agree with that.

[00:00:09]But first, that's when the House of Burgesses was formed. So, that was the first representative body in the Americas. And that's remarkable.

[00:00:17]Already, these ideas were being put in place in 1619.

[00:00:22]>> Representative government. Exactly.

[00:00:24]Independent of the king, independent of Parliament. So, already before uh well, at that point, well before Locke wrote his second treatise of government, you have people saying, "We're going to get together and we're going to make the laws." And so, I think that is remarkable and important to what happens later. But the other thing is the arrival of women.

[00:00:44]And why is that so important? The first women arrived in 1619.

[00:00:48]>> Exactly. It's only 12 years after the the founding of Jamestown and the first arrival.

[00:00:53]But what's fundamental about that is that it indicated this is not just a military outpost. This is actually a settlement.

[00:01:02]This is a colony. We intend to stay here and actually live here. It's not an outpost like Guantanamo Bay, let's say.

[00:01:09]And so, I the idea that all right, this is going to be a permanent place where people live and they're going to represent themselves and make their own laws through the House of Burgesses.

[00:01:20]That's much more fundamental. The the arrival of slaves, I I mean, those ideas were formed and in place and planned before the arrival of slaves. So, all that was fundamental and independent of slavery.