We might have forgotten the other important events that had happened round about where we were sitting, in that first little town by the river, if a coloured man had not wandered our way. He had driven some sightseers over from Williamsburg, and while waiting for them to visit the graveyard, he seemed to find relief in confiding to us some of his burden of colonial lore and that his name was Cornelius. We had over again the story of Rolfe and Pocahontas, but it seemed not at all wearisome, for the new version was such a vast improvement upon the one that we got out of the books. However, his next statement eclipsed the Pocahontas story.
"De firs' time folks evah meek dey own laws for dey se'fs was right heah, suh, right in dat ole chu'ch."
While again facts could not quite keep up with Cornelius, yet it was true that our little four-acre town had seen the beginnings of American self-government. So early did the spirit of home rule assert itself, that it bore fruit in 1619, when a local lawmaking body was created, called the General Assembly and consisting in part of a House of Burgesses chosen by the people. On July 30 of that year, the General Assembly met in the village church—the first representative legislature in America. The place of meeting was not, as is often stated, the church in which Rolfe and Pocahontas were married, but its successor—the earliest of the churches whose ruined foundations are yet to be seen behind the old tower.
Perhaps our thoughts had wandered some from Cornelius, but he brought them back again.
"Dey set in de chu'ch an' meek de laws wid dey hats on," he asserted.
And as the House of Burgesses had indeed followed in this respect the custom of the English House of Commons, we were glad to see Cornelius for once in accord with other historians.
Then, Nautica spoke of how the very year that saw the beginning of free government in America saw the beginning of slavery too; and she asked Cornelius if he knew that the first coloured people were brought to America in 1619 and landed there at James Towne.
"Yas'm; ev'ybody tole me 'bout dat. Seem like we got heah 'bout as soon as de white folks."
It was a comfortable view to take of the matter, and we would not disturb it.
Cornelius told us other things.