Simon
de Montford's Parliament of 1265 in England called 2 elected
representatives from every county and borough - so surely this predates
anything in the colonies,as far as representative government is
concerned,by several centuries.
In Athens,all male citizens were entitled by law to attend,speak,and
vote at the Assembly from the early 6th century BC onwards.
Republican Rome had (at least in theory) a one man -one vote system for citizens from the late 6th century BC.
So,representative government was far from new when English colonists in the Americas began such systems.
