After the persistence of the British policy of oppression and control over the American colonies and the attempts to obliterate the identity of their inhabitants, the colonies worked on moving forward towards achieving independence, and Virginia was the first to initiate the development of the new government frameworks, through George Mason in drafting the Virginia Bill of Rights in 1776, which expressed the philosophy of the era Enlightenment and independent revolutionary thought, which called for equality and natural rights for individuals and the need for a free popular government that works for the common good.