The first law enacted in America depends on what you count. If the question is about the United States Congress, the answer is the Oath Act, approved on June 1, 1789, which required federal and state officers to swear support for the Constitution.1GovInfo. First Congress Session I Chapter 2 1789 If the question reaches back further, the 1619 Virginia General Assembly produced the first laws written by an elected representative body on the continent, earlier colonial governors imposed written codes before that, and Indigenous nations governed themselves under formal legal systems long before any European arrived.
The Oath Act of 1789
The First Congress convened in the spring of 1789, and the first statute it sent to President Washington was short and pointed. The Oath Act required all members of Congress, state legislators, and government officers to swear or affirm: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States.”2United States Senate. The Senate’s First Act – The Oath Act
The choice was deliberate. Before the new government levied a tax, organized a court, or raised an army, it demanded that every official pledge loyalty to the written Constitution. That order of operations announced what kind of government this would be: one grounded in a document rather than in tradition or royal authority.
The First Representative Legislation: Virginia, 1619
On July 30, 1619, the first General Assembly met inside a wooden church at Jamestown. It was the first representative governing body to convene anywhere in the Americas, and it has continued meeting, as the Virginia General Assembly, ever since.3Historic Jamestowne. The First General Assembly
The laws it passed were detailed and practical. Every householder had to plant at least six mulberry trees per year for seven years and maintain ten grapevines annually. Gambling with dice or cards meant forfeiting all winnings plus a ten-shilling fine per person. Drunkenness carried graduated punishments: a private word from the minister for the first offense, a public rebuke for the second, and twelve hours in the provost marshal’s custody for the third. The Assembly also prohibited colonists from causing “injury or oppression” against Indigenous peoples that might disturb existing peace agreements.4Online Library of Liberty. 1619: Laws Enacted by the First General Assembly of Virginia
These are the strongest candidates for the first laws enacted in America by a representative body. Ordinary colonists, through elected representatives called burgesses, made rules for themselves rather than having a military governor impose them.
Earlier Written Rules: Virginia, 1611
Written rules existed in the colonies before 1619, but they came from the top down. In 1611, Sir Thomas Gates and Sir Thomas Dale imposed the Laws Divine, Morall and Martiall on Jamestown. This harsh military code dictated nearly every aspect of daily life, from mandatory church attendance to severe punishments for minor offenses like unauthorized trading. It was closer to martial law than to legislation, but it stands as one of the first attempts to put colonial rules in writing.
Foundational Documents That Shaped American Law
Several early colonial texts sit alongside the Virginia laws as milestones in the development of American governance, even when they are not statutes in the modern sense.
The Mayflower Compact (1620)
Signed in November 1620 aboard the Mayflower at Cape Cod, the Mayflower Compact was not itself a code of laws. It was an agreement to create laws. Most of the male passengers signed. The colonists pledged to form a “civil Body Politick” and to create “just and equal Laws” for the good of the colony, promising obedience to those laws.5General Society of Mayflower Descendants. The Mayflower Compact William Bradford described it as “the first foundation of their government in this place.” The principle mattered: these colonists were voluntarily agreeing to submit to rules they would write together, not following orders from a king or a trading company.
The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639)
The Fundamental Orders, adopted in 1639 by Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield, is among the leading candidates for the first written constitution in the colonies. Unlike the Mayflower Compact, the Orders actually built a government, establishing a governor, magistrates, and a general assembly with defined powers. The document made no reference to the English Crown. Voting rights were broader than those in neighboring Massachusetts Bay Colony, where only church members could participate; in Connecticut, any admitted freeman who had taken the Oath of Fidelity could vote for magistrates and deputies, though the governor still had to belong to an approved congregation.6Avalon Project. Fundamental Orders of 1639
The Massachusetts Body of Liberties (1641)
Published in 1641, the Massachusetts Body of Liberties was the first comprehensive legal code established by European colonists in New England. It was structured as a list of rights rather than prohibitions, running to ninety-eight sections covering judicial proceedings and the rights of free men, women, children, servants, foreigners, and animals. It guaranteed that no person could be punished, arrested, banished, or stripped of property without express legal authority, a principle that reads as an early form of due process. Several of its provisions later appeared in the Bill of Rights.7Mass.gov. Massachusetts Body of Liberties
Indigenous Law Predates All of It
Any honest answer to “first law in America” has to reach past the colonial period. Indigenous peoples operated under complex legal systems for centuries before Europeans arrived. The most documented is the Great Law of Peace (Gayanashagowa) of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Scholars estimate it dates to the mid-fifteenth century, though some place its origins earlier. It united five nations, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca, under a shared framework with defined legislative procedures, leadership roles, and limits on power.
The system worked through a council. Mohawk and Seneca Lords deliberated on one side, Cayuga and Oneida Lords on the other. The Onondaga served as Firekeepers, opening and closing councils and rendering final decisions. If the two sides agreed, the Firekeepers confirmed the decision; if the Firekeepers dissented, the two sides could overrule them by reaffirming their position.
Benjamin Franklin, who had extensive contact with the Haudenosaunee, wrote that it would be “a very strange Thing” if six Indigenous nations could sustain a lasting union while a dozen English colonies failed to manage the same. In 1987, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution acknowledging that the confederation of the original thirteen colonies “was explicitly modeled upon the Iroquois Confederacy” and that many democratic principles in the Constitution drew from Haudenosaunee governance.8Library of Congress. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Constitution
So Which One Is the First?
Pick your definition and the answer follows.
- First law of the United States: the Oath Act, June 1, 1789.
- First law enacted by an elected representative body in the colonies: the acts of the Virginia General Assembly, July 30, 1619.
- First written code imposed in an English colony: the Laws Divine, Morall and Martiall, Jamestown, 1611.
- First written constitution in the colonies: the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, 1639.
- First comprehensive rights-based code in New England: the Massachusetts Body of Liberties, 1641.
- First formal legal system on the continent: Indigenous governance frameworks, including the Great Law of Peace, in place well before European arrival.
Each of these is a defensible answer to a slightly different question. If you are looking for the founding statute of the country as a legal entity, it is the Oath Act. If you are looking for the earliest laws made in America, the answer runs much further back.