Lesson video

Hi, and welcome back to Year 8 history.

My name is Mr. Arscott, and today I'm really looking forward to telling you about the war that Britain fought against its 13 colonies in North America.

Now, this is the fifth lesson out of, so if you haven't done the first four lessons, please have a go at doing them first 'cause you'll need that information before we start today.

If you haven't done so already, please get yourself a pen, some paper, and then start by trying to copy out today's title, which is the Revolutionary War.

And whilst you do that, I'll get my head out of the way.

So, as I said, our touch today is the Revolutionary War.

If you haven't copied that out yet, please pause the video to do that.

So, we're now partway through our inquiry, where we try to answer this question.

Did the Enlightenment fuel a revolution in America? Now we first looked at this question last week and by the end of this week, you'll be in a really good position to give a really full answer.

Now, just a bit of a recap, only to have a look at these two images, you should have seen them before.

And I want you just write down a couple of notes about what you can remember about the enlightenment and America.

So pause the video now to write down a couple of notes.

So, hopefully, you've got some things like this.

Now the enlightenment was a time when people use reason and experimentation to develop new ideas, and these new ideas include beliefs about natural rights from Locke, and ideas like the separation of powers from Montesquieu.

And hopefully, you also remember that this flag was created for a new country, and that new country was created by revolution.

The country's called the United States of America or USA.

And today in our lesson, we're going to find out how this country was created.

Now firstly, let's recap the story so far.

And when I say so, I'm going to ask you to pause the video, read through these statements and decide whether you think they're true or false.

Afterwards you can unpause the video and we'll find out.

So please pause the video.

Welcome back.

So, for the first statement a, well done if you thought that this was true, Britain did want to tax the 13 colonies, and it was actually this that cause many of the later events.

For statement b, well done if you thought it was false.

Famously, the colonists, who are the people who lived in the colonies, wanted that to be fewer or no taxes on tea.

They weren't really complaining about the amount of tea coming into America.

For statement c, well done if you wrote false, despite the strange name, The Boston Tea Party was actually a protest rather than celebration.

Now, and this protest peep from Boston destroyed Tea, and they're doing that to protest against the British taxes.

For statement d, well done if you wrote true, Lexington and Concord were the first places where fighting broke out.

And the picture you can see is an image of that fighting breaking out.

Now, the militias, if you remember, were the unofficial armed groups that the colonists formed to protect themselves against the British Army.

Now, once that fighting broke out against the militias, the revolution had basically begun.

And people across the 13 colonies rose up against the British.

And this is because the British Army was seen as being brutal, and it seemed the British government was acting like a tyrant.

Remember, a tyrant means a cruel ruler, and therefore tyranny means ruling cruelly.

So, very early on, this revolution against British tyranny became a war of independence.

Once The British army was seen killing colonists, the Americans weren't interested in fighting over tax.

They want to become an independent country so they'd be protected forever.

Now, one talented American soldier emerged as a leader, and he managed to unite the different militias into an organised American army.

His name was George Washington.

And quickly, this professional army was able to win some victories against the British, and you could see on a painting of one of his early victories here.

Now this war then became increasingly popular amongst the Americans who lived in what were the 13 colonies.

Now, we can see this popularity most clearly when we look at the involvement of women.

Firstly, many American women refuse to buy anything made in Britain.

They didn't want to show any support for Britain, they didn't want to spend any money on British goods.

And this is known as a boycott.

Now also at the time, it was very unusual for women to be involved in fighting, but some women cared so much about protecting their new country that they took matters into their own hands.

And here, we can see an image of Nancy Hart, and she famously captured six British soldiers.

Now as support for the new country grew, the British found it harder and harder to win.

To make matters even worse for the British, the French and the Spanish then join the war to support George Washington's army to defeat them.

The French army was especially important, or the French Navy was especially important because it made it much harder for the British to move troops quickly from place to place from their ships.

You can see the famous sea battles against the British and French navies here.

Now eventually, in 1783, the new American country finally defeated Britain, and called itself the United States of America.

And Britain reluctantly recognised the country as a new, independent country outside of its empire.

Now, this new country was keen to avoid the problems experienced under Britain.

So, the leaders start working very hard on the rules the government must follow.

Now we call the rules of government must follow, a constitution, and the Constitution the leaders chose, made the United States of America a republic without a king or queen.

And instead of a king or queen, the USA would have a president who is elected, and George Washington became the third president of the USA.

Alright, I'm going to ask you to pause the video now and copy out this definition of constitution.

Now, although it's a new word, we actually know a bit about constitutions already.

So one type of constitution is a republic, which is led by an elected president.

Another type of constitution is a constitutional monarchy like Britain, where the monarch and Parliament share power.

And a third type of constitution is an absolute monarchy, like France or Russia, where the monarch has all the power.

Now we know how America became an independent country, it's worth thinking about what kind of revolution took place.

Now, I want you to pause the video briefly, I want you to have a look at this painting, which is from America's war of independence, and write down anything that you think you can see, which might be important.

So, this is a difficult painting to interpret.

One thing you might have noticed is that a group of people are trying to pull down a statue.

The statue is meant to represent the British King, George the third.

And the painting can cause the impression of a violent scene.

Now, I think this painting quite nicely captures what people imagine when they hear the word revolution.

Now we see a mass of people, and they're doing something which is destructive.

And that's often what comes to mind when we think of revolution.

Now, what we're going to try to do is we're going to try to decide whether the American War of Independence was revolutionary, or kind of, in what ways was it revolutionary? Now, in one sense, it clearly was revolutionary, because a new country was created, but what are the other ways we can use to decide how revolutionary something is? Well, a few questions to help us think about it.

Did America experienced rapid change? So it did it, did lots of things change very quickly, and this is often a sign of revolutions when things change quickly.

Another way to think about whether something is revolutionary, were there major consequences, and maybe all these consequences that America still experiences today? And another way to think about whether something's revolutionary or not, is to think about, was it inspired by new ideas, maybe for something like the enlightenment? And did it lead people thinking about a new way to imagine society? Now to help us, think about this in a slightly more structured way, I want you to think about this question.

What type of change did America experience between 1775 and 1787? Now those are the years of the revolution, so basically the question is saying, what type of change did America experience during its revolution? Now, there's two options there, and these two options are two good answers.

And we're going to spend the rest of this lesson thinking about which one of these is actually a better answer, what evidence we can give to back them up.

So firstly, did America experience what I'm calling an enlightenment change? One where enlightenment ideas created a new style of government, or instead, did America experience a conservative change? Now what this means was, we're the revolutionaries, not trying to do anything new, but instead to try to keep things how they used to be.

Now, pause the video now, have a read through both these options and think about what they might mean.

You might want to take a note of them, 'cause we're going to come back to them later on.

So, what evidence can we use to backup the ideas that either this was an enlightenment or a conservative change? Firstly, there's the evidence for enlightened ideas.

Now, the best bit of evidence is the new constitution.

And this was inspired by Montesquieu's ideas about the separation of powers.

Montesquieu wanted to avoid one person having too much power, and the USA constitution did just that.

The US, the Constitution said there'd be three or equal branches of government, and each would do a different job.

We can see that in this diagram here.

So firstly, the Legislative branch would make new laws that choose the laws and vote on those laws and debate those laws.

The executive branch would make sure the laws were obeyed.

And finally, the judicial branch will be made up of judges, and they decide whether laws have been broken, so they decide questions of innocence or guilt.

Now, the reason this achieved Montesquieu's ideas was that, according to the USA Constitution, no one person could work in more than one branch of government.

And this stopped any one person becoming too powerful.

Now, we can also look at the way America changed and think about whether or not actually experienced a conservative change, one that's going backwards.

So, rather than trying to create a new kind of society, or try to create a new kind of government, was the revolution instead trying to fight against changes introduced by Britain? So, to support this idea, arch rule, it was the British government that tried to change things by introducing new taxes on tea.

It was then the British government who started behaving like a tyrant.

And this image on the right shows the British government treating America badly.

And did the American Revolution just want to go back in time to time they had more freedom, they might refer to as having ancient liberties that they're trying to protect.

Now, a really revealing piece of evidence that can help support the idea that actually, this revolution was fairly conservative is that at the end of it, slavery was still legal in some American states.

So clearly, the Americans weren't trying to change everything, they weren't trying to adopt every enlightenment idea, and they weren't trying to imagine a completely new style of society.

Right, now we're going to try and consolidate some of that out and also some comprehension questions.

So I'm going to read through these questions, and then you're going to need to pause the video, go to the next page, read through that information, and then answer those questions.

So I'll read through the questions now.

One, what was the official name of the country that won the war of 1775 to 1783? Two, what two names are given to the battles fought between Britain and America in 1775 to 1783? Three, who led the American armies? Four, what kind of government did independent America choose for itself? And five, this is the challenge question, we got to think for yourself, what were the key reasons why America won the war of independence? So remember, the answers or the information to answer all those questions is in the text.

So when I get the purple screen, pause it to the green screen, pause the video, go to the next page, read through that information, ask questions and then come back, and we'll go through the answers.

When you do that, you can add extra information to your answers.

So please pause the video now.

Welcome back.

So, question one, what was the official name of the country that won the war of 1775 to 1783? An acceptable answer, the United States of America or USA.

A good answer and a full sentence, the country that won the war of 1775 to 1783 was called the United States of America or USA.

This was a new independent country made up of what had been the 13 colonies.

A good answer, good bit of background information the second sentence.

Remember, if you didn't get exactly these answers, that doesn't mean you've got it wrong, look for common language and give yourself a tick, if it's something similar.

If you didn't get this answer, write up the correct answer.

Question two, what two names are given to the battles fought in Britain America in 1775 to 1783? An acceptable answer, the American War of Independence and American Revolutionary War.

A good answer and a full sentence, the conflict fought between Britain and America between 1775 to 1783 is sometimes called The American War of Independence, and sometimes called the American Revolutionary War.

Three, who led the American armies? An acceptable answer, George Washington.

A good answer in a full sentence, the general who led the American armies was called George Washington.

He formed the militias into an organised and well trained army.

Question four, what kind of government did independent America choose for itself? An acceptable answer, a republic or a government with a separation of powers.

A good answer, Independent America chose to have a constitution which made it a republic.

The new constitution was inspired by the enlightenment idea of a separation of powers.

And finally, question five, the challenge question, what were the key reasons why America won the war of independence? An acceptable answer, the French and Spanish helped and the war was popular.

A good answer in a full set, or set of full sentences, there were several reasons why America won the war of independence.

One reason was Washington's leadership, another reason was that the French and Spanish supported Americans against the British.

A third reason was that the war was popular, so the people in the America support their army against the British.

Right, really good work, you've managed to get up there, you can learn some new knowledge and you had an opportunity to improve that knowledge by going through these answers.

If you're running out of time, I suggest you stop the video and then go to the final quiz.

But if you've got a bit of extra time, I suggest you have a go at this extension activity.

Question six, what type of change did America experience between 1775 and 1787? Now these kinds of questions will develop your historical thinking as a really good way to get better at history.

So, in order to answer this question, we're going to go through a bit of information and I'll give you a go, I'll be able to answer.

So, these are the changes that America experience during this period, during the period of revolution.

I'll ask you to pause the video, just have a read through these to remind us of what are the main changes.

Right, now let's have a think about how we could ask this question.

Well, as I said before, there's two main ways we could answer it.

We could argue that the changes America experienced were mainly enlightenment changes, or we could argue that the changes America experienced were conservative changes.

So it's an enlightenment change, it's about new ideas, imagining a new style of government.

It was conservative change, it's about trying to go backwards, maybe trying to protect ancient liberties, or trying to turn back the clock to imagine time where Americans have more freedoms. So, what I've got here are two possible starts to an answer.

Now, in nice full sentences, and we're good for a start.

Now, if you think you've already got an answer you can give and you can think of some information you can put at the end of those to support your points, then you can pause the video now and have a go right here.

If you want a bit more suggestions about what you can put in there, then keep the video running, and I'll give you a few suggestions on the next slide.

So, we've got the same sentence starters here, but now we've got some examples that you can put in.

Now these examples are all jumbled up.

Some are examples of someone who thinks that American Britain conservative changes would talk about and some of them are ones which someone who thinks about as an enlightenment change would include.

So what I want you to do is I want you to have a go at trying to write out sentence one or two, and then finish the second sentence, choosing one of those key examples.

And in then next slide, would check whether or not you've got anything right.

So, if you want to have a go writing it now, pause the video, and then we'll go through some answers.

Okay, welcome back.

So, what are the kind of things you could have said, where it's an enlightenment change or a conservative change? Well, if this is an enlightenment change, you might talk about the separation of powers in the USA as a new constitution.

You might have also taught thinking about a few lessons to how this is a fight for sovereignty, so that Americans could control their country.

Or you might taught about how they're fighting for natural rights, like liberty.

You've kept like the phrase it like that, as we'll see, we get to the other side.

If you instead said that actually, America experienced conservative changes which we're trying to get backwards.

A key thing you might said was that slave owning continued, so it wasn't a completely new style of society.

You might have well said that it was a fight against taxes.

And finally, you might have also mentioned the fact they're fighting for freedom, instead refer to them as ancient liberties, the idea of fight for freedoms that Americans used to have.

So if you got any of those points for either enlightened change or concessions, give yourself a tick, you'd have written a really good answer.

Right, it's now time for you to stop the video and go to the final quiz.

Well done if you have watched eight steps.

You need an extension because it's really fun to do this.

So brilliant stuff, and I look forward to seeing you later this week.