Hello and welcome to today's history lesson.

My name is Mr. Merrit and I'll be guiding you through today's lesson.

So let's get started.

Today's lesson is looking at the colonisation of North America, and by the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to recall that during the 16th and 17th centuries, many people migrated to the Americas and forcibly removed indigenous peoples from their lands.

In order to do that, we need to use some key terms, and our key terms for today are indigenous, colony, Native American, and emigrated.

Indigenous people are the original inhabitants of a specific area.

A colony is a country or area under the control of another country and occupied by settlers from that country.

A Native American is a member of any of these societies who originally inhabited North and South America and the Caribbean islands and emigrated means having left one's own country permanently and gone to live in another one.

Today's lesson will consist of three separate learning cycles, and our first learning cycle is looking at the New World.

So let's get started.

So in 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed westward outta Spain with orders to find a trade route to China and India.

And the reason being is that the Silk Road had been blocked by the Ottomans after their capture of Constantinople in 1453.

And Western monarchs were eager to find another way to trade with the wealthy nations of China and India.

Up to this point, travel across the Atlantic Ocean had been neither desirable, realistically, nor even possible.

However, the use of new naval technologies such as magnetic compasses and lanteen sails combined with advances in map making, made it possible for Columbus to sail off into the unknown.

On the 12th of October, 1492, Columbus's ship spotted land.

It was not China or India as he had expected.

Instead, from the European perspective, a New World had been discovered, the Americas.

Right, as of a quick check for understanding now, so quick true or false statements.

The only reason English sailors were able to explore the New World was thanks to accurate maps of the surrounding area.

Is that true or is that false? Make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose a false, then very well done.

That is indeed a false statement, but let's justify it.

Now, why is that statement a false? Is it false because in map making, along with advances in naval technology, allowed for exploration of the New World? Or is it false because capturing Spanish and Portuguese sailors and using 'em as guides allowed for exploration of the New World? So choose your justification now.

All right, if you chose A, then well done.

That is the correct answer.

Now, the Spanish settled numerous colonies in south and central America.

They also settled a few in the southern parts of North America as well, and they made themselves immensely wealthy through the discovery of gold and other precious metals.

In 1496, King Henry the VII of England sent the explorer John Cabot westwood, in order to find some of the New World and the wealth for England.

Cabot reached modern day Canada in North America, but finding no riches on a par with what Spain had discovered, he was not met with enthusiasm when he returned home and journeyed trough the royal courts.

His discoveries were met with enthusiasm on the docks of England's fishing towns though, because the grand banks of Newfoundland were teeming with cod.

English fishermen began making cyclical migration journeys there to fish, and some made temporary homes for themselves on the shores of Newfoundland.

It would be nearly a century before English monarchs turned their attention westward again.

Under Elizabeth I, and later James I, the English explorers set up with the goal of finding a northwest passage around Canada to trade with China and India.

Martin Frobisher in the 1570s and Henry Hudson in the early 17th century, tried repeatedly with no luck.

Further south, attempts were made to establish permanent colonies in modern day Virginia.

So Walter Raleigh made two attempts in the 1580s to set up a colony on Roanoke Island with no success.

However, in 1607, Jamestown became the first successful English settlement in North America.

Okay, let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So which two English monarchs oversaw the exploration of the New World? Was it Edward VI? Mary the I, Elizabeth the I, or James the I? Choose two of those options now.

Okay, if you chose C and D, then very well done.

Those are the correct answers.

Right, let's go for our first task for today.

So I'd like to look at the source on the screen in front of you there.

I wanna consider how useful is this source for an historian studying the reasons for the English exploration and settlement of North America? And I'd like you to support your answer with two pieces of evidence.

So just to consider that source, it's a photo of a horde of Spanish gold coins.

The gold for these coins was mined in the Spanish colonies, in the Americas, and shipped to Europe.

Their colonies in the Americas made Spain the richest country in Europe.

So consider the question, pause the video whilst you answer it, and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on okay with that task.

Let's think about what you could have said then.

So you could have said that the source is quite useful for an historian studying the reasons for the English exploration of North America as it shows Spanish gold, which was discovered in vast quantities in the American colonies.

This encouraged other nations to explore the Americas in the hope of also finding gold and other precious metals.

However, the source is less useful in explaining the reasons why English people chose to settle in North America.

Gold and other precious metals were not discovered in the lands that England explored, but rich fishing grounds were found off the coast of Newfoundland.

This encouraged English fishermen to take part in cyclical migrations and some made temporary homes in Newfoundland.

So if you thought about other ways in which this source is useful that are different to mine, that's absolutely fine, as long as you've explained it and backed that with evidence.

That's what we're looking for here.

Right, let's move on to our second learning cycle of the day, which is thinking about why did people immigrate to North America? So the lure of potential riches, like the Spanish discovered in their colonies, attracted many English settlers across the Atlantic Ocean.

This was especially true from the Elizabethan period onwards, as a growing population struggled with rising unemployment.

Changes to land use in England, which is that enclosures and sheep farming became common, both of which reduced jobs for farm labourers and reduced land that common people could use, encouraged many people to try farming in the colonies of North America.

The first settlers met with little success.

More than 80% of the Jamestown colonists died of starvation or disease in 1609 to 1610.

But with help from the local Native American tribe, the colony did survive and later thrive.

Once it was discovered that Virginia was perfect for growing tobacco, settlers began flocking to the colony.

Tobacco is very easy to grow and it makes a tremendous profit as well.

So it was in many ways the perfect crop for these new settlers.

In 1617, there were 400 people living in Jamestown.

This rose to 1,240 people by 1622.

Large tobacco farms known as plantations began springing up, and the trade in tobacco from Virginia back to England, made both territories very rich.

Now, tobacco was not the only cash crop that was being grown in the Americas.

A cash crop is a crop that is grown to sell for profit and not personal use, essentially things that you cannot live on, things that you have to sell in order to make any sort of profit from them.

There were other cash crops that encouraged people to immigrate to the American colonies.

In the 1690s, the English owned island of Barbados switched from tobacco cultivation to sugar plantations.

Barbados was already the largest English slave colony, and when the enslaved peoples are made to work on sugar production, it enabled Barbados to become the most profitable English colony in the Americas.

Although cash crops encouraged many people to immigrate, the excellent farmland and abundant fishing grounds were also a major draw for people facing starvation in England.

Right, let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So it's a discussion based question.

I'd like to think what economic reasons were there that people emigrating to North America? So pause the video while you consider that question, and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hope you've got on okay with that task, Let's think about what you could have said then.

So you could have said that high unemployment in England due to land use changes, was a reason why people emigrated.

There's also a growing population in England.

There was good farmland in North America.

There were also good fishing grounds in North America, specifically the grand banks off of Newfoundland.

There was also lucrative cash crops like tobacco and sugar that could be grown in North America, and it was possible that there were gold fields in North America like the Spanish had found in South and Central America.

Certainly that's what people hoped, and that was a major draw for a lot of people as well.

So there were a great number of immigrants who moved to the American colonies for religious reasons, rather than economic reasons.

The reformation begun by Henry VIII in 1534, led to persecution for Catholics and Protestant non-conformists.

Son, and by that we mean Protestants who are not Anglicans.

One of the largest non-conformist groups, the Puritans, in particular viewed the American colonies as a means of escaping this religious persecution.

Between 1630 and 1641, roughly 80,000 puritans migrated to the American colonies.

Roughly 20,000 of them went to the colony of Massachusetts where they were inspired by the success of the Puritan settlement of New Plymouth.

Settled in 1620, New Plymouth relied mainly on cod fishing to survive.

However, it also established rules ensuring fairness and equality for its residents, which went on to become guiding principles for many of the American colonists, regardless of whether they were Puritan or not.

Other religious groups from England moved to the American colonies, particularly during the chaos of the English Civil Wars, where they were joined by similar religious groups from other parts of Europe who were also escaping religious conflicts.

Okay, let's do another quick check for understanding now.

It's a true or false statement again.

So is it true or false that Anglicans emigrated to North America to escape religious persecution? So make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose false, then congratulations.

That is indeed a false statement, but let's justify it now.

Why is that statement false? Is it false because Puritans and other non-conformist immigrated to North America to escape religious persecution? Or is it false because atheists immigrated to North America to escape religious persecution? Choose your justification now.

Okay, if you chose A, then very well done.

That's the correct answer.

Right, let's go for our next task now.

So I'd like you to read the interpretation on the screen.

It's Laura's interpretation and she says, "North America was only settled by Europeans because Puritans wanted to escape persecution." I'd like to think about to what extent do you agree with Laura's interpretation? I'd like to support your answer with two pieces of evidence.

So pause the video while you complete that task, and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hope you got okay with that task.

So let's think of what you could have said then.

So you could have said that I disagree with Laura's interpretation, although she is right to some extent.

Laura is correct in saying that Puritans settled in North America to escape persecution.

Between 1630 to 1641, roughly 80,000 Puritans migrated to the American colonies with most of them heading from Massachusetts in order to be near the successful Puritan colony of New Plymouth.

However, Laura is wrong to say that this was the only reason that North America was settled by Europeans.

Many English people emigrated to the American colonies in order to make money and improve their economic conditions.

Unemployment was high in the Elizabethan period and remains so after that, so many people immigrated the American colonies to work on tobacco plantations.

This had been proven to be a successful means of wealth by the Jamestown colony in Virginia between 1617 and 1622.

Its population tripled due to the lure of its potential wealth.

Therefore, Laura's statement is correct to some extent, but she fails to provide a full picture of the reasons for European settlement of North America.

So even if you disagree with my assessment of Laura's interpretation, hopefully you've got a similar format to myself there in a sense that I've fully explained my opinion and I've backed up my opinion with evidence as well.

So as long as you're doing that, then whatever answer you've got is is absolutely fine.

Right, let's move on then now to our third and final learning cycle for today, which is looking at the impacts of colonisation.

So although Columbus is credited with being the first European to have discovered the Americas, in fact, he wasn't even that, the Vikings were there several hundred years before him, the reality is, is that there were already an estimated 50 million indigenous inhabitants living just in North America alone at this point in time.

First contact between European settlers and Native American tribes was mixed, but frequently destructive.

Violence was common and the technological superiority of European weapons gave the colonists an unhealthy advantage.

The most devastating weapon that Europeans brought with them though was disease.

Native Americans had no natural immunity to European diseases such as smallpox, and they died in staggering numbers.

Just to put it into context a little bit, the average mortality rate of smallpox in Europe was roughly 30%.

So roughly one in three people in Europe who contracted smallpox died of it, and that's with some semblance of a natural immunity.

Some historians have estimated that up to 95% of Native Americans were killed by European diseases.

Many of them caught these diseases before they even saw a European settler.

We have stories of, this is also the case in South America as well.

We have stories of European explorers stumbling across villages that are completely abandoned and just filled with corpses because everybody has died of these European diseases and there's nobody left.

It was genuinely horrendous, the extent to which Native Americans were affected by European diseases.

The real irony of it all though, is that without the indigenous people, many of the early settlers would never have survived.

The Jamestown settlers needed the help of the Powhatan tribe to learn how to farm and live off the land, and the Patuxet tribe did the same for the new Plymouth colony.

In response, many English settlers felt justified in taking land from these tribes as their semi nomadic lifestyle meant that to English eyes, their land was not being used.

Some settlers desired to teach the indigenous people a more civilised way of life, and by that I mean a more European way of life, complete with a belief in Christianity.

But many were simply happy just to take what they wanted from the Native Americans, through force if necessary.

The roughly 560,000 Native Americans living in territories claimed by the English, that's the 13 colonies, had shrunk to less than 280,000 by 1700.

For the English, and later the British settlers, the American colonies quickly became something approaching paradise.

Land was plentiful, food was abundant, and people could worship freely.

The English settlement soon developed into 13 separate colonies, which are on the screen in front of you there, and fairly quickly began developing their own identities separate from that of the land of their birth.

This identity was partially based on the religious and social ideals of the new Plymouth Puritan colony who believed in fairness and equality.

Right, so let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So I'd like you to choose two words to summarise the interactions that British settlers had with Native Americans, and once you've chosen those two words, I'd also like you to explain why you've chosen those words.

So pause the video while you do this and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hope you've got on okay with that task.

So one of the words that I chose was disease, and I chose this word 'cause up to 95% of Native Americans died of diseases brought over by Europeans.

The second word that I chose was violence, and I chose this word because many other Native Americans were victims of violence by the settlers.

If you've got two different words than me, then that's absolutely fine as long as you explain them.

That's the key aspect there.

Let's have another check for understanding now.

I'd like to choose two things that occurred due to settlement in North America.

Was it that 13 colonies were established? Was it that an American identity was forged? Was it that Britain industrialised or was it that colonies were not settled elsewhere? So choose two of those options now.

Okay, if you chose A and B, then very well done.

Those are the correct answers.

Right, let's go for our next task for today then.

So I'd like to explain two consequences of the settlement of North America by British colonists.

So pause the video while you do this and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully got okay with that task.

Let's think about then what you could have said.

So you could have said that one consequence of the settlement of North America by British colonists was that the indigenous tribes of Native Americans were decimated.

It is estimated that up to 95% of the 50 million Native Americans of North America were killed by diseases such as smallpox, to which they had no natural immunity.

Many others were the victims of violence from the settlers.

This had the effect of destroying much of the culture and land rights of some Native American peoples, as there were fewer of them left to pass their culture and land rights onto.

Another consequence of the settlement of North America by British colonists was that the 13 colonies that were later to become the United States, were founded, and soon began developing their own identities separate from their home country.

This identity was partially based on the religious and social ideals of the New Plymouth Puritan colony who believed in fairness and equality.

The founding of the colonies that became the United States was a considerable importance for world history, as the US has had an enormous influence on world events.

If you've got different consequences to myself, that's not a problem as long as you've backed it up with evidence and explained them.

That's the key aspect there.

Okay, let's summarise today's lesson now then.

So English exploration of the New World began under Henry VII, but really took off during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I.

Many people immigrated the American colonies for the possibility of gaining great wealth or to take advantage of the lush farmland and fishing grounds.

Some immigrants were fleeing religious persecution and were drawn by the promise of freedom of worship.

Indigenous tribes of Native Americans suffered greatly at the hands of the colonists.

Many died of European diseases, whilst others were their victims of violence.

Settlers in the American colonies developed their own national identity.

Thank you very much for joining me today.

Hopefully you've enjoyed yourself.

Hopefully you've learned something.

And hopefully I'll see you again next time.

Bye-Bye.