Hello, I'm Mr. Marchin, and it's a real pleasure to have you joining me today.

I'm really looking forward to working together on our history lesson.

Welcome to today's lesson, which is part of our unit on the European Conquest of the Americas, where we're asking ourselves, why was that conquest so devastating for Native Americans? By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to describe what North America was like before the arrival of Europeans.

Our lesson today is really gonna build on some of the prior learning and skills that you've developed in history.

So we'll be thinking about similarity and difference, and also using specific case studies, looking at very specific groups in historical periods.

In order to understand more about the Americas as a whole.

We have five key words that are gonna be really important for helping us navigate today's lesson.

Those are indigenous, Native American, empire, nation, and hunter-gatherers.

So to define our key words, indigenous means people who are the original inhabitants of a specific area.

Native Americans are members of any of the societies who originally inhabited North and South America, as well as the Caribbean islands.

This means we can describe Native Americans as being indigenous to the Americans.

An empire is a group of countries or provinces ruled from the centre by a person or by a group of people.

A nation is a community of people linked together by shared language, territory, ethnicity, or culture.

And finally, hunter-gatherers are people who live off hunting, fishing, and harvesting for wild food.

So we are gonna break down our lesson today into three parts, and we are gonna begin by thinking about the arrival of Europeans in the Americas.

We're going to begin our lesson by thinking all about the map we can currently see on the screen.

It was produced in Europe in the 15th century.

So by studying this map, what do you think is missing from it? Just pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your answers.

Okay, really well done.

Now, thinking about what seems to be missing from this map, you would've been correct if you said that there seems to be some land missing, specifically Australia, Antarctica, and most of the Americas are not shown on this map.

This is because Europeans simply were not aware for most of the 15th century that those other lands existed.

But we need to keep in mind as historians that just because Europeans at the time did not know those lands existed, it doesn't mean that there weren't already people living there and things already occurring in those places.

Christopher Columbus is probably the most famous European to have ever travelled to the Americas.

He sailed from Europe to the Americas in 1492.

However, Columbus was not the first European to travel to the Americas.

At the very end of the 10th century, Greenland Vikings became the first Europeans to encounter, that means to come across, the Americas.

Greenland Vikings settled in North America for a short period in the 11th century.

It is sometimes being claimed that the Greenland Vikings and Columbus discovered the Americas.

But this is incorrect.

Indigenous people already lived in the Americas before Europeans arrived.

So those indigenous people didn't need to be discovered, and the places they lived couldn't have been discovered by Europeans if indigenous peoples were already living there.

Viking settlers first encountered Native Americans in the 11th century.

The Vikings traded with Native Americans, but they also fought with them regularly.

Conflict with Native Americans led the Vikings to abandon their settlements in North America.

Okay, so now we're ready for our first check for understanding.

Identify the first group of people to live in the Americas.

Was it Native Americans, Greenland Vikings, or Christopher Columbus? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Okay, so really well done to everybody who said that Native Americans were the first group of people to live in the Americas.

Remember, because they were the original inhabitants in the Americas.

This is what we can call Native Americans, indigenous to the Americas.

Okay, so for a second question, to make sure we really understand European arrivals, in which two ways did Native Americans and Viking settlers interact? That means act towards one another in North America in the 11th century? Was it that they never met one another? They traded together, they created joint settlements, or they fought one another? Remember, you need to select two of those options to give your answer.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answers.

So to check our answers, the two ways that Viking settlers and Native Americans interacted with one another was that they traded together, but also that they fought one another regularly.

Let's keep in mind that the reason the Vikings left North America is because of that conflict they were having with Native Americans.

So now we are ready for our first practise task.

We are gonna put everything we've learned so far into action.

So I want you to complete the passage by adding in the missing words.

You can see the passage on the screen now, and it has four gaps.

The four missing words which you need to use to complete our passage are abandon, Columbus, Native Americans and Viking.

Pause the video here and press play once you're ready to reflect on your answers.

Okay, some really good work on that task.

So to complete the passage by adding in the missing words, you should have written, nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus sailed from Europe, Viking explorers from Greenland arrived in North America.

The Vikings created settlements in North America and traded with Native Americans.

However, conflicts with indigenous groups led the Vikings to abandon their settlements.

So really well done for all your effort on that task.

And now we are ready to move on to the second part of our lesson.

We are gonna be thinking about Native American diversity.

There were many different Native American societies spread all across the Americas before Europeans arrived.

We are gonna take just five examples to demonstrate this.

In the very north of the Americas, you may have encountered the Inuits who lived around what we think of as modern day Canada.

In the northeast of the Americas, you would've found the Iroquois.

Around modern day Mexico, so moving into Central America, one would've found the Aztecs, and also in Central America, the Maya civilization.

As we move down into South America, you would've found the Inca who lived across what we think of as countries like modern day Peru and Bolivia.

Now, indigenous societies differed in structure and size.

We are gonna take just two different Native American societies now, the Aztecs and the Iroquois, and look at them in a little bit more depth so we can see some of these differences even more clearly.

The Aztecs were led by an emperor.

So just one person was making the most important decisions for their society.

By contrast, the Iroquois were led by a council of 50.

The Aztecs lived in a society dominated by men.

So males were making most of the important decisions.

For the Iroquois, their leaders were also male, but those leaders were appointed by women.

So this gave females an important influence over their society because they were choosing the leaders.

The population of the Aztec Empire was greater than 5 million at its height.

The Iroquois were much smaller.

Their population reached a maximum of 20,000 people, and the Aztecs lived in an empire that included huge cities like Tenochtitlan.

The Iroquois lived in villages and towns, but not in cities.

So now we want to check our understanding, a similar new information about Native American diversity.

So is the following statement true or false? All Native Americans were part of one society.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the right answer.

Okay, really well done to everybody who said that that statement is false.

It is not correct that all Native Americans were part of one society.

But how can we justify that answer? Two justifications have just appeared on screen that Native Americans all shared the same culture and leaders, or that there were many different Native American societies like the Iroquois, Aztecs, and Incas.

I want you to select the statement, which is correct.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your answer.

Okay, really well done again, the correct answer is that there were many different Native American societies like the Iroquois, the Aztecs, and the Incas.

That diversity, the existence of different groups helped shows us that Native Americans were not all part of one society.

So to check our understanding a little bit further, I now want you to identify the two accurate comparisons between the Aztecs and the Iroquois.

Is it that the Iroquois nation was much larger than the Aztec Empire? The Aztecs and Iroquois were both led by Empress.

The Iroquois did not build large cities like the Aztecs.

The Iroquois women had more political power than Aztec women.

Remember, you need to pick two of those statements, which give an accurate comparison.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answers.

Okay, really well done on that task.

So the first statement, which gives an accurate comparison is C, that the Iroquois did not build large cities like the Aztecs.

The Iroquois only lived in towns and villages, unlike the Aztecs who built some huge cities like Tenochtitlan.

The second statement, which gave an accurate comparison was D, Iroquois women did have more political power than Aztec women, because Iroquois women were able to appoint some of the male leaders of their society that gave them an important influence over what happened.

So we are gonna put all of our new knowledge into practise.

I want you to provide evidence to support the following statement.

Native American societies were not all the same.

In your answer, you should refer to both the Iroquois and the Aztecs as part of your response.

So pause the video here and press play when you are ready to reflect on your response.

Okay, there was lots for us to think about in that task.

So really well done for all your effort.

Now, I asked you to provide evidence to support the following statement, that Native American societies were not all the same.

I also asked you to refer to both the Iroquois and the Aztecs.

So you may have considered the following, that the Aztec Empire was much larger than the Iroquois Nation.

Over 5 million people lived in the Aztec Empire compared to just 20,000 in the Iroquois nation.

That is just one comparison that you may have made that would demonstrate the statement is correct.

So really well done for your work on that task.

And now we are ready for the third and final part of today's lesson.

We are gonna focus on the Iroquois now, thinking about their society in even more depth than we have so far.

The Iroquois, were actually a group of five different indigenous nations in the northeastern region of North America.

These five nations were the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca.

Around 1450, these five nations all agreed to the great Law of Peace and formed a league.

That means a group that would cooperate together.

You can see an image on the screen which commemorates, it remembers the creation of that great Law of Peace between our five different Native American nations.

The Iroquois League reduce fighting between the Mohawk Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca It also helped the Iroquois population to grow and allowed the nation to become more successful compared to other Native American nations.

So now we are just gonna check our knowledge and our understanding of the structure of Iroquois society.

So how can the structure of Iroquois society be best described? As a single nation of Native Americans, a league of three Native American nations, a league of five Native American nations, or a league of eight Native American nations? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Okay, really good work on that task.

The structure of Iroquois society can be best described as a league of five Native American nations.

Remember that the Great Law of Peace brought the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and the Seneca nation together as one.

And let's try one more question to make sure we really understood our first bit of information about the Iroquois.

I want you to write the missing word in this statement.

After the Iroquois League was formed, the population of the Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Mohawk nations.

Pause the video here and press play when you are ready to hear the correct answer.

Okay, really well done to everybody who said that the population of the Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Mohawk nations grew, expanded, or increased after the Iroquois League was formed.

Because the great Law of Peace brought peace and cooperation to those groups, they were able to focus on improving themselves and that helps their populations to grow.

The Iroquois didn't actually use that name to describe themselves.

Instead, they called themselves the Haudenosaunee, which means people of the longhouse.

Longhouse were the most common type of home, which members of the Iroquois nations lived in.

Several families who were related through the female bloodline usually lived in each long house.

Long houses were built from wood and could range from 25 to 300 feet long.

Some Iroquois villages had just five long houses, but bigger towns sometimes included more than 20.

You can see an example of one of these Iroquois towns on the screen.

However, the Iroquois did not remain in these homes permanently.

Every 20 to 30 years, each Iroquois village would relocate in order to obtain fresh resources of things like water, wood, and food.

So let's check our understanding of Iroquois homes and where they lived.

Complete this sentence.

The Iroquois called themselves the Haudenosaunee, which meant, A, people of the longhouses or B, people of the short houses.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Well done to everybody who correctly remembered that Haudenosaunee means people of the longhouses.

But let's try and provide a little bit more detail to explain where that name came from.

Did the Iroquois call themselves the people of the longhouses because several families usually shared each Iroquois house, or because the Iroquois moved regularly so did not stay in the same home for long.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Okay, really well done to everybody who said the correct justification was C, that several families usually shared each Iroquois house.

This meant that long houses could range from anywhere from 25 feet to 300 feet long.

So if we think now about how the Iroquois obtained, how they got their food, it's important for us to know the Iroquois were both farmers and hunter-gatherers.

Women were responsible for gathering wild plants and fruits from the forest, and men were responsible for hunting animals.

You can see an image of some Iroquois men hunting deer on the screen.

Women and men were both responsible for fishing.

However, most of the food the Iroquois ate was produced by farming.

The Iroquois mostly grew corn, beans and squash, which were known collectively as the Three Sisters.

The Three Sisters were considered important not just for the Iroquois physical health, but also their spiritual wellbeing.

Farming was mostly the responsibility of Iroquois women.

Okay, so let's check our understanding of that new information about how the Iroquois got their food.

Is it true or false to say the Iroquois obtained most of their food by farming? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Okay, really well done to everybody who said that that statement is true.

But let's justify our answers.

Which of the following justifications is better? That the Iroquois was successful hunter-gatherers or that corns, beans and squash were the most commonly grown crops? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Okay, really well done to everybody who said the best justification was B.

That corns, beans and squash were the most commonly grown crops in Iroquois society.

Collectively, those three were known as the Three Sisters, and it was seen as important not just for their physical health of the Iroquois, but also for their spiritual wellbeing.

Now it's time for us to put our knowledge of the Iroquois into practise.

For the first part of our task, I want you to provide examples to support each of the statements about the Iroquois.

Now, I've already completed one for you.

So you know how to follow the instructions on this task.

If we had the statement, the Iroquois were a mixed Native American society, we could back that up by saying they were made up of five different indigenous nations, the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca.

You have two other statements.

The Iroquois used varied methods to acquire food, and the Iroquois lived in large homes.

For both of those statements, you need to write an additional sentence that gives some examples to back them up.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your answers.

Okay, some great work on that task.

Lots for us to think about when we are providing examples to back up our statements about the Iroquois.

So we already saw for statement A that the Iroquois were a mixed Native American society that could be backed up by saying they were made up by five different indigenous nations, the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca.

For statement B, that the Iroquois used varied methods to acquire food.

You may have backed that up by saying they were hunter-gatherers, but produced most of their food by farming crops like corn.

And for statement C, that the Iroquois lived in large homes, you may have backed that up by saying long houses were the most common form of Iroquois housing and could be up to 300 feet long.

So really well done for all of your work on that task.

Now we're gonna move onto the second part of Task C.

We have a statement that says, the Americas were not empty before Europeans arrived.

I want you to write one paragraph to explain why this view is correct.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your answers.

Okay, really well done for all of your hard work on that task.

There's always a lot to keep in mind when we're producing our own paragraphs.

So for our statement, the Americas were not empty before Europeans arrived, to explain that this view is correct, you may have considered that the Americas were not empty before Europeans arrived because many different indigenous societies existed.

For example, the Iroquois lived successfully in North America and grew in size after 1450.

Some of you may even have gone further and provided another example to back up your point, you could have said the Aztec Empire was another Native American society and ruled over 5 million people by 1500.

This shows that there were many successful indigenous societies already in the Americas before Europeans arrived.

So really well done for all of your hard work on that task.

We've now reached the end of our lesson today, thinking about the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans, and we see that Greenland Vikings were the first Europeans to arrive in the Americas.

There was a diverse range of indigenous societies in the Americas before Europeans arrived there.

There were many differences in the size, structure, and culture of Native American societies and nations like the Iroquois were growing in size before Europeans arrived in Americas.

So thank you for all of your hard work in today's lesson, and it's been a real pleasure to work through it with yourselves.