Hello and welcome to today's history lesson.

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

So let's get started.

Today's lesson is looking at the War of Independence, and by the end of today's lesson we'll be able to recall that the American Revolution happened as a result of resistance against control by the British government.

In order to do that, we need to use some key terms. And our key terms for today are Patriots, independence, Loyalists and constitution.

Patriots, were the group that supported America during the American Revolution.

Independence means being able to do things for yourself and make your own decisions.

The Loyalists were the group that supported Britain during the American Revolution and the constitution is a set of rules and law relating to the government of a country.

Today's lesson will consist of three separate learning cycles, and our first learning cycle is looking at what caused the American War of Independence.

So let's get going.

Now, the seeds of rebellion in America were sewn following the French and Indian War from 1754 to 1763.

And this war was the American theatre of the wider seven years war.

And actually Winston Churchill later said that he considers the seven years war to be the first truly global war.

It was a war between European powers fought in Europe, but also fought within their colonies around the world.

So that's why Churchill considered it to be the first truly World War.

A British victory over France and Spain gained in Spanish Florida and all of France's American territories.

And if you look at the screen in front of you there, you can see the extent of those gains.

So everything in pink was what was gained after the French and Indian War.

So everything in red is what Britain held before the French and Indian War.

So you can see that the gains were huge, absolutely ginormous amounts of land that had been gained from this war.

Now this land, it included all of Canada, all of Canada that had been discovered by the European settlers and explorers up to this points and also significant tracks of land west of the Appalachian Mountains.

The border of the 13 colonies is pretty much where the Appalachian mountain range is.

And over the other side of that, that was now Britain's land as well, that was all new land.

Unfortunately, these gains in America came at huge financial cost to Britain.

And in an effort to claw back some of the costs of this war, Britain imposed taxes upon the 13 American colonies and insisted that they could only trade with Britain.

So this is one way that hopefully we could generate some money from the colonies, which is by ensuring that we had a trade monopoly.

The only people that could trade with was Britain and therefore we could set the price of all these different trades goods.

So a variety of different laws were put into place.

And the Stamp Act was introduced in 1765, the Townsend Act in 1767 and 1768.

And the Tea Act was introduced in 1773.

And in many cases, these acts actually reduced the amount of tax that colonists were required to pay on certain goods.

But the difference here is that it was actually much stricter in enforcing the idea that tax should be paid and therefore we shouldn't be smuggling goods into the colonies as well.

And that was the real difference here, pay less tax on certain goods but actually pay that tax as opposed to just not paying the tax till was just smuggling it all in.

Understandably, the acts were wildly unpopular because now things cost mortgage to pay tax on them.

The main issue though, that colonists had with these acts was that taxes were being imposed upon them by a parliament in which no colonists were represented.

That's the big issue that Parliament has said, "You've gotta pay tax here." And there's nobody from the colonies to argue their case in parliament.

These acts were repealed after lengthy protests and the boycott of British goods.

But the main objection of the American colonists that parliamentary representation was not happening, it was still not addressed.

Let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So true or false statement, colonists were unhappy that the representatives in the British parliament voted to increase taxes in the American colonies.

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

Alright, if you chose false, then well done.

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

Now, why is that statement false? Is it false because colonists in America weren't happy that their representatives were removed from the British Parliament? Or is it false because colonists in America were unhappy that they paid taxes but had no representation in the British Parliament? So choose your justification now.

Alright, if you chose B, then well done.

That's the correct answer.

Now the British government had to make difficult decisions regarding what it could do with the American lands that it recently acquired.

And the issue essentially was that there wasn't enough money or troops to pursue all possible routes for expansion.

So difficult decisions have to be made.

There's not the resources available to send people out in every single direction, even though it must have been incredibly tempting.

The British though, decided to concentrate on settling Florida and Canada.

And the reason why they chose those two areas is that they wanted to reduce the influence of Spanish and French Catholics who were living in those areas.

So this meant that Westwood expansion beyond the Appalachian Mountains into Native American land quite simply wasn't possible as a result, the British government, it said it's forbidden.

You cannot go in that direction.

And the reason being is if the British government were concerned that colonists who were travelling into that land west of the Appalachian Mountains might inadvertently start a war and would understandably expect the British government to defend them if that was the case.

And quite simply, the British government wouldn't be able to defend themselves in that kind of fight.

So they're trying to prevent that sort of engagement from taking place in the first place.

Didn't really matter though, the fact that it was forbidden angered the colonists in America.

They ignored the rules and they set out west anyway.

Now in 1770, a protest in Boston turned violent when British troops fired into an angry crowd and it killed five people.

This event became known as the Boston Massacre.

Boston was again the centre of anti British protest on the 16th of December, 1773, when a group of disaffected citizens described themselves as Native Americans, they boarded British tradein ships that's three ships in the harbour and they dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbour.

Now the Boston Tea Party, as it became known, amounted to roughly 10,000 pounds worth of damage, which shouldn't necessarily sound a lot, but when taken into inflation in taking today's currency that's roughly 1.

5 million pounds of damage that they did.

An angry parliament responded by taking direct control of Massachusetts, Massachusetts being the colony that Boston was a part of, and passing a series of strict laws which returned the intolerable acts by the colonists.

The American colonists responded by organising a meeting of representatives from almost all of the 13 colonies and they met in Philadelphia in 1774.

I say you almost all because the representative from Georgia didn't attend.

And the reason being is that they were fighting a Native American uprising and they needed the British Army to help them.

So they felt that it wasn't a very good idea to attend a meeting which was decidedly anti-British when they were very much relying upon Britain to keep them safe, at that point in time.

This first Continental Congress, as it was known, it reassured the British King George the third, that they didn't actually want independence.

That's not what this meeting is about.

It's not what their demands are, but they object to taxation without representation.

And that was kind of the key slogan here that they wanted representation if they were gonna be taxed.

The first Continental Congress delegates agreed to meet again the following year.

However, before the second Continental Congress actually took place, the War of Independence had already broken out.

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

So what happened during the Boston Tea Party in 1773? Did protestors dump British tea into Boston Harbour? Did the British Army confiscate all the tea in Boston or did the first Continental Congress meet in a Boston teahouse? Make your choice now.

Alright, if you chose a, then well done.

That is the correct answer.

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

So I've got a source on the screen in front of you here.

Source A is an illustration of the Boston Tea Party, which was a protest against taxes imposed by the British on the American colonies that took place on the 16th of December, 1773.

I'd like you to consider how useful is this source for an historian studying the causes of the American War of Independence? And to answer that question, I'd like you to pick out two features of the source to discuss it.

So how useful is this source? So pause a video whilst you complete this task and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

I hope you got okay with that task.

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

So I said, "Source A is very useful for an historian studying the causes of the American War of Independence, as the source shows protestors dressed as Native Americans onboard a ship throwing boxes into the water.

This illustration depicts the Boston Tea Party in which a group of colonists destroyed hundreds of crates of British tea, both throwing it into the harbour.

This action resulted in Britain taking direct control of Massachusetts and passing a series of strict laws termed the intolerable acts by the colonists.

These events combined with a prelude to the outbreak of the war and therefore Source A is useful in sharing an accurate depiction of one of the causes of the war.

Source A is also useful for an historian studying the causes of the American War of Independence because it shows crowds of people cheering on the protestors destroying the tea.

American colonists would've been in support of Boston Tea Party as they rejected the Tea Acts of 1773 and other British taxes imposed on goods.

Therefore, source A is useful as the cheering crowds in the illustration suggest to a historian the colonist attitude towards the British at this time." So hopefully your answer follows a similar format to mine where I picked out an element of the source.

I've linked it to some specific details and used that to support the point that I'm trying to make, which is the fact that this source is useful.

Generally speaking, any source that you are given in this particular unit will be a useful source and it's your job to try and pick out useful features.

Pretty much every historical source is useful to a degree.

So you've just gotta try and find where that utility is.

Right, let's go into our next learning cycle of the day, which is thinking about what happened during the War of Independence.

Now on the 19th of April, 1775, British troops in Boston marched out to take control of a weapons cache in the nearby town of Concord.

Massachusetts militia men responded by lining up for battle in the town of Lexington on the road to Concord.

Historians do not know for certain who shot first, but fighting broke out.

And that marked the official start of the American War of Independence, which is also known as the American Revolution.

Look, I think you can use those terms interchangeably.

A British force of more than 32,000 troops, which was the largest army that Britain has ever sent outside of Europe, made its way to the American colonies.

Within this force were Hessian cavalry from Germany and many in Britain and its colonies were very uneasy about employing foreigners to kill British citizens.

And the impact this had was they actually increased the number of Patriots.

It definitely increased sympathy for the Patriot cause and it actually caused more people to join their ranks as well.

Having said all of that, a desire for independence was not the reason that war broke out, but it soon became an aim of many of the colonists.

On the 10th of January, 1776, Thomas Payne published a pamphlet entitled "Common Sense" in which he argued for American Independence, suggesting that it was common sense.

When the second Continental Congress met later that year, a group led by Thomas Jefferson were tasked with writing out a Declaration of Independence.

This was published on the 4th of July, 1776.

The Congress had voted for independence just two days earlier.

The Declaration of Independence as well as setting the goal of the war against their mother country also had unintended and far reaching consequences.

The first line of the declaration reads, "We hold these truths to be self-evidence that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.

That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The idea that people are equal was revolutionary.

It doesn't sound like it today, but at the time it absolutely was a revolutionary idea.

Britain had been built upon the idea that certain people such as the monarchy and the nobility were quite simply just a better class of person than the majority of the population.

They were just born better than the vast majority of us.

This concept, the whole idea of equality became a founding principle of the United States Constitution as well as inspiring change in other countries around the world.

Let's have a quick check for understanding and it's a discussion based question.

I'd like you to consider what was significant about the Declaration of Independence.

So pause the video while you consider that question and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

I hope you got okay with that task.

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

So you might have said that it announced the breakaway of the American colonies from British rule, that it established the founding principles of the American Constitution or that it was the inspiration for other countries who also fought for independence.

And you might have said that it promoted the idea of equality.

Now if you've got any different points to myself then that's absolutely brilliant, but hopefully you've got at least some of the ones that are on the screen there in front of you as well.

Now, a patriot victory at Saratoga in October, 1777 inspired France to agree to join the war against Britain.

The American colonists have been asking France for a couple of years now to join the war on their side, and France was very unsure about the colonists' ability to fight the British.

But this relatively small scale victory for the Patriots was enough to swing the favour in France of supporting the Patriot course.

That's exactly what happened.

On the 21st of June, 1777, Spain actually did the same.

Spain actually declared war on Britain without ever declaring an alliance or a friendship with the American colonists.

There's a reason for that, which we'll discuss in just a moment, now, the loyalist clause though was helped by the influx of more than 20,000 African American enslaved people who agreed to help the British in return for freedom.

And some of those after the end of the war did journey back to Britain.

And some of those were then actually moved back to, I was gonna say their home country, they moved back to West Africa to Liberia, which were, some of them was absolutely nowhere near where they're from originally.

But with the taking into context, the time period, it was a nice thing to do.

It was a bit shortsighted, but there would, I suppose Britain was doing it with the right intentions at the point in time, even if it wasn't particularly successful undertaking.

Ultimately though, these additions to the loyalist cause were not enough.

In October, 1781, a patriot land force combined with the French Navy blockaded, the British Army in Yorktown, the surrender of the British marked the effective end of the war, although the resulting treaty of Paris was not signed until the 3rd of September, 1783 and this marked the date when the 13 British colonies in America became the United States.

And the reason why it took so long for a peace deal to be hammered out was that this peace deal involved Britain, the American colonists, naturally, France and also Spain.

And there was a lot of disagreement over who should get what at the end of this.

And there was certainly fears within Britain that Spain in particular would now attack the American colonists and use the opportunity to take over a lot of lands in North America.

So although we had lost a war to the American colonists, in the peace deal, we actually spent a lot of time trying to support the American colonists who just defeated us to make sure that they were strong enough to fight back a potential Spanish attack.

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

So where were the British defeated that signalled the effective end of the War of Independence? Was it at Bunker Hill? Was it at Ticonderoga or was it at Yorktown? Make your choice now.

Alright, if you chose c, then well done.

That is the correct answer.

Let's go for our next task for today.

I would like you to choose three of the below factors and write a sentence for each explaining how they contributed to the loss of the American colonies.

So you can choose from war, religion, government, economic resources, science and technology, ideas and key individuals.

So choose three of those now.

Pause the video whilst you do this and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you've got okay with that task.

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

So one of the factors that I chose was war.

And I said that, "The Patriots had to fight numerous battles to remove the British from the colonies and involves France and Spain in the war." I also chose the factor of ideas and I said that, "The American colonists embraced the concept of equality, which went against British ideas of monarchy and nobility." And I also chose the factor of government and I said, "The second continental Congress established itself as the government of the Patriots, issuing proclamations like the Declaration of Independence." If you've got different factors to myself discussed, then that's fantastic.

You can now use my three examples as well if you need to use 'em in the future.

Right, let's move on now to our third and final learning cycle for the day, which is thinking about what were the consequences of the war? So Britain suffered great financial hardship as a result of losing the war and its American colonies.

National debt soared to 10 million pounds, stock and land prices plummeted and trade suffered from repeated attacks by its enemies.

This impact though was only actually temporary and trade with the former colonies, soon recovered and trade with Europe, but actually doubled by 1792.

So Britain actually came out okay from this war, not in the short term, but in the medium to long term.

We were okay from this.

Concerns that Ireland would also rebel in the same manner as the American colonies caused Britain to relax some of the restrictions placed upon this part of the empire and the loss of the American colonies actually encouraged Britain to focus expansion elsewhere.

For instance, in Canada, the Caribbean, India and Africa.

So if we are kept hold of these American colonies, there's every possibility that Britain would not have expanded elsewhere in the world.

Within the newly formed United States, westward migration increased sharply as Britain's restrictions were thrown off.

The area of Virginia that became Kentucky had a population of just 150 in 1775, but by 1790 this had grown to more than 73,000.

So a really, really significant rise in number of settle moving westward.

Although the Declaration of Independence had raised the concept of equality and Americans firmly believed in this principle.

Quite ironically, slavery still persisted in the United States.

In fact, the man who was the main draftee of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson actually owned more than a hundred slaves himself.

And a lot of the Americans didn't necessarily see the irony of declaring their independence because of equality and at the same time owning slaves.

Around the world, however, the issue of slavery was called into question.

Britain abolished slavery on the 1st of August, 1834, freeing more than 800,000 enslaved people.

The declaration and the resulting constitution also served as an inspiration for other colonies wishing to fight for their own independence.

In South America and Haiti, revolutionaries were inspired to fight for their independence.

Perhaps the most ironic consequence of the War of Independence occurred in France.

The absolute monarchy had helped a nation break away from its monarchy and become independent only for this to lead to an overthrow of his own monarchy and execution of its monarch, just a few years later in 1793.

Certainly an outcome that the French government was not expecting.

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

So I'd like to identify two consequences of the war of independence.

Was it that the abolition of slavery around the world? Was it the creation of the United States? Was it the destruction of the British army or was it a revolution in France? So choose two options now.

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

Those are the correct answers, and let's go for another quick check for understanding now.

So I'd like you to match the ideas generated by the War of Independence, the evidence supporting each one.

So the ideas that are generated were the abolition of slavery, the getting rid of slavery, equality, and independence.

So match those to the examples we have on the screen in front of you as well.

Pause the video whilst you do this, and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

I hope you got okay with that task.

So let's think about what we've got here.

So the abolition of slavery can be supported by the fact that Britain abolished slavery in 1834.

The idea of equality is supported by the fact that France executed their absolute monarch in 1793, and the concept of independence is supported by the fact that revolutions in colonies in Haiti and South America occurred as well.

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

I'd like you to colour code the consequences of the War of Independence into short term and we can consider that to be things that happened up to a year or so after the events and long term, which is things that happened more than a year after the events.

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

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully gone okay with that task.

So let's think about what short term and long-term consequences there were after the War of Independence.

In terms of short term, Britain suffered a loss of trade.

It was humiliating losing to the colonists and that was also the creation of the United States.

But in the long term, the British Empire expanded elsewhere, the French Revolution occurred and there was an increase in trade.

So hopefully you got all of those correct as well.

And let's go for our final task for today.

I'd like to read the interpretation below this, Andeep's interpretation.

And he says "The loss of the American colonies was not a big deal for Britain," and I'd like you to consider to what extent do you agree with Andeep's interpretation.

And I'd like you to support your answer with at least two pieces of evidence.

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

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully got okay with that task.

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

So you could have said, "I agree with Andeep's interpretation to some extent.

In the short term, the loss of the colonies was very much a big deal for Britain as Britain was already in financial trouble before the War of Independence.

As a result of the French and Indian wars and fighting the war of Independence made things much worse.

For instance, national debts soared to 10 million pounds and trade suffered greatly through attacks by the colonists and their allies, France and Spain.

It would also have been seen as humiliating for the British to lose a war to their own colonists.

However, in the long term, Britain bounced back strongly from the loss of the American colonies as trade with the former colonies soon recovered and trade with Europe had doubled by 1792, within a decade of the creation of the United States.

Britain was also able to focus its attention on increasing the size of its empire in other areas of the world such as India and Africa.

This may not have been possible if the American colonies had not won their independence and British attention remained on trying to keep America in the British empire.

Therefore, Andeep's interpretation is accurate to a certain extent." Now, this is my opinion regarding Andeep's interpretation.

If it is different from your own, that's absolutely fine.

It's not a problem at all as long as you supported your own interpretation or your own opinion of Andeep's interpretation with evidence.

That's the key thing here.

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

So Britain's success in the French and Indian Wars greatly extended its territory in America, but meant that it needed to tax the colonists to pay for the war.

American colonists were very unhappy about having to pay taxation without representation in the British Parliament, responding with the protests such as the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

The Declaration of Independence in 1776 stated the colonists' desire to be free of British rule and led to the American Constitution and Britain's defeat at Yorktown effectively ended the war and granted the colonists, their independence.

This had unforeseen consequences for independence movements around the world.

Thank you very much for joining me today.

Hopefully you've enjoyed yourself.

Hopefully you learned something and hopefully I'll see you again next time.

Bye-Bye.