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 explain how Europeans came to arrive in North America.

Today's lesson is gonna build on some of our prior knowledge about the importance of religion for Europeans in the past, and also our prior understanding that the Americas were already inhabited by indigenous peoples by the time that Europeans arrived there.

And we have five key words, which are gonna help us navigate today's lesson.

Those are Renaissance, empire, Native American, settlement and colony.

The Renaissance was a period of new thinking and ideas in Europe inspired by ancient Rome and Greece.

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

Native Americans are members of any of the peoples who were the original inhabitants of North and South America, as well as the Caribbean Islands.

Settlement is the process of establishing new communities in an area.

And our final keyword, colony.

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

So empires are often made up of multiple colonies belonging to one other country.

So we're gonna break today's lesson into three parts, and we'll begin by thinking about Europeans and their understanding of the world in the 15th century.

In the 15th century, Europeans began sailing further than ever before.

In 1492, they arrived in the Americas.

Now, there were two key factors which helped to explain this development.

Those are technology, and trade and international relations, and we're gonna look at these one by one.

The 15th and 16th centuries were part of the Renaissance, a time of new ideas and new thinking.

This new thinking helped lead to improvements in technology, including those used in exploration and navigation.

Caravels and carracks were new types of European ships designed during the 15th century.

These could travel long distances across the open ocean more quickly and with more storage space than any previous type of ship had been capable of.

The Renaissance also encouraged Europeans to improve long used tools such as the astrolabe.

Astrolabes helped sailors to judge their location when at sea.

Improvements to the tool during the 15th century made sea travel more reliable so Europeans could have more confidence to travel further.

So we're gonna check our understanding of that new knowledge about technology and how it encouraged Europeans to travel further.

So which two Renaissance developments supported European exploration? Was it new ships like caravels and carracks, improvement of compasses, the improvement of astrolabes or new maps, including those of Oceania and Antarctica? Remember, you need to pick two of the options to answer this question fully.

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

Okay, some really good work on that task.

So really well done to everyone who remembered correctly that the first development which helped to support European exploration was the development of new ships like caravels and carracks, which could travel across the ocean more easily and with more space than any previous types of European ships had previously been capable of.

The other key improvement in technology that helped allow European exploration and supported Europeans to travel further than they had before was the improvement of astrolabes.

Those pieces of equipment in the astrolabe helped sailors to know where they were and when that was improved, they could sail with more confidence and that encouraged them to go further than they ever had before.

In the 15th century, Europeans only knew that three continents existed: Europe, Asia, and Africa.

They were not aware of the Americas, Antarctica, or Oceania.

You can see this demonstrated by the map on the screen where large parts of the world effectively didn't exist in the European understanding.

Europeans had traded with Asia for many centuries.

This trade largely took place using overland routes from Europe to Asia.

However, in the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire was growing significantly.

Because the Ottoman Empire was Islamic and conquered large areas of land between Europe and Asia, Christian Europeans were worried that the Ottomans would interfere with their existing trade routes to Asia.

You can see the area of Ottoman territory in the 15th century marked on the map, and that makes it really clear how the Islamic Ottoman Empire really did seem to stand in the way between Europe and the places in Asia it wanted to trade with.

As a result, Europeans began looking for direct sea routes to Asia, which would avoid Ottoman-controlled territories.

The Portuguese mostly focused on attempting to navigate around the southern tip of Africa.

Some European explorers suggested that other routes, such as sailing west across the Atlantic Ocean might also allow Europeans to reach Asia.

So let's check our understanding of how trade and international relations encouraged European exploration.

Is the following statement true or false? 15th century European navigators sailed new routes to find the Americas.

Is that true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement is false, but we need to be able to justify our answers.

So two new justifications have appeared on the screen, that Europeans hoped to build empires in the Americas to compete with the Ottomans or that Europeans were looking for new sea routes to Asia to avoid Ottoman lands.

Which of those justifications is best for showing our statement was false.

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

Okay, well done again for all the hard work on this task, the correct justification was B.

We know that European navigators were not sailing to find the Americas.

Their real purpose was to find new sea routes to Asia to avoid the Islamic Ottoman lands.

It just happened that that led them to find the Americas.

So now we want to put all of our new knowledge about Europeans in the world into practise.

I want you to complete the following sentences.

So our first sentence says technologies encouraged European exploration because.

The second says trade and the growth of the Ottoman Empire encouraged European exploration because.

And you need to complete both of those sentences with your own explanations.

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

Okay, really well done for all your hard work on that task, a lot for us to think about there.

So if we were trying to complete the sentence, technologies encouraged European exploration because, your answer may have included that new ships, like caravels and carracks were designed during the Renaissance.

These allowed sailors to travel further across oceans than before.

For our second sentence, that trade and the growth of the Ottoman Empire encouraged European exploration because, you may have said traders hoped to find new sea routes to Asia, which avoided lands controlled by the Muslim Ottomans.

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

So now that we've thought about Europeans in the world, we're ready to move on to the second part of today's lesson where we're actually gonna focus on the arrival of Europeans in the Americas.

Christopher Columbus was an Italian navigator.

Columbus was sponsored by the monarchs of Spain to sail abroad and find a new sea route that would take Europeans to Asia.

Columbus's idea was that Europeans should sail west across the Atlantic Ocean if they wanted to get to Asia directly by sea.

So Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic in 1492.

Columbus arrived in the Americas, but believed he'd reached Asia.

After all, that was where he'd originally intended to arrive.

It was because he thought he'd arrived in Asia that Columbus incorrectly called Native Americans Indians.

So let's just check our understanding of some of that new information about Columbus's arrival in the Americas.

Why did Columbus sail west across the Atlantic? Was it to trade with Native Americans, to create colonies in the Americas or to find a new sea route to Asia? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was C.

Columbus was sailing west to try and find a new sea route to Asia, hoping that that would mean Europeans would not have to travel through territories controlled by the Islamic Ottoman Empire.

And let's try one more question to make sure we're really confident in what we're talking about.

I want you to write the missing word.

Columbus arrived in the Americas in the year, and I want you to tell me what specific year was it that he arrived in the Americas in? So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Okay, so well done to everybody who said the correct answer was 1492.

That was the year when Columbus arrived in the Americas.

So one final question to help make sure we're confident in our understanding of Columbus' arrival.

Why did Columbus originally call Native Americans Indians? Was it because he believed he had reached Asia, otherwise known as the Indies, because he believed they spoke to him in an Indian language or because he believed all non-Europeans were Indians? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Okay, so well done to everybody who said the correct answer was A.

Columbus called Native Americans Indians because he incorrectly believed he'd reached Asia by sailing West from Europe.

Columbus denied for years that he'd arrived in the Americas even when some people challenged him on it, but that's why he called the indigenous population of the Americas Indians.

Once Europeans understood that the Americas were not part of Asia, the Americas became known as the New World.

Now, the Old World was supposed to refer to places like Europe, Asia, and Africa, the continents that Europeans had already known before 1492.

And the New World was North and South America, as well as the Caribbean Islands, those parts of the world that Europeans had been unaware of before Columbus arrived there in 1492, Europeans called the Americas the New World, but they had not discovered anything new.

Indigenous people had lived in the Americas for thousands of years.

So really, there was nothing new about it.

In fact, if you look at the illustration on the screen of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire, that city was one of the largest in the world by the 15th century, and it existed long before Europeans arrived in the Americas.

So as historians, it's important we remind ourselves that the label New World is a little bit misleading.

So let's just check our knowledge about those extra bits of information we've picked up.

What other name did the Americas become known by? Was it the Indian World, the New World, or the Old World? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said B.

The Americas became known as the New World in contrast to the Old World of Europe, Africa, and Asia that Europeans had previously been aware of.

And what was the problem with Europeans calling the Americas the New World? Was it that it's no longer new to historians, that it wasn't new to the Native Americans, or that it wasn't the only place Europeans travelled to for the first time? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was B.

It was problematic for Europeans to call the Americas the New World because it wasn't new to Native Americans.

They'd been living there for thousands of years before Columbus arrived in 1492.

So there wasn't really anything very new about this part of the world.

So now we're gonna put all of our knowledge and all of our new understanding into practise.

I want you to correct the following statement.

Columbus always intended to travel to the Americas.

And then as a second part of this task, I want you to provide additional information to support your corrections.

Think about some specific factual details that will demonstrate your correction is in fact accurate.

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

Okay, some really good work on that task.

So thinking about the first part where we needed to correct the statement Columbus always intended to travel to the Americas.

You may have included in your answer that Columbus did not originally intend to travel to the Americas.

And then thinking about the second part of our task where we needed to provide additional information to support our correction.

Well, if our correction said Columbus did not originally intend to arrive in the Americas, then we may have included the following.

Columbus sailed west to reach Asia.

He had hoped to establish a direct trade route by sea between Europe and Asia.

You could also have said Columbus had not known the Americas existed.

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

Now we're ready to move on to the third and final part of our lesson today, all about Columbus and Hispaniola.

When Christopher Columbus reached the Americas in 1492, he landed on a number of islands in the Caribbean.

One of the largest of these islands was Hispaniola.

Hispaniola was already inhabited by indigenous Taino people.

So there were already Native Americans who lived there.

Columbus was able to trade with the Taino for gold.

Before leaving Hispaniola to return to Europe, Columbus left 39 of his men to create a settlement on Hispaniola.

These men were instructed to establish a mine at the new settlement in the hope of gaining even more gold from Hispaniola.

Despite the population of Tainos already living there, the Spanish monarchs claimed Hispaniola as a colony and appointed Columbus as the governor, the person to run that island.

So let's just check our understanding of the initial arrival of Columbus in Hispaniola.

Is it true or false to say that Spain respected indigenous people's control over land in the Americas? True or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that was false.

Spain did not respect indigenous people's control over land in the Americas.

But we need to justify our answer.

How can we tell that statement is false? There are two justifications which are now on the screen, that Spain claimed the lands Columbus encountered in the Americas as colonies, and that Spain only hoped to visit the lands Columbus had encountered in the Americas.

Which one of those justifications shows that our statement was false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that A was the better justification.

We know that Spain didn't respect indigenous people's control over land in the Americas because Spain claimed the lands like Hispaniola, which Columbus came across as colonies for themselves.

Columbus returned to Hispaniola in 1493.

One of his key aims was to convert, that means to change the beliefs, of the Tainos to Christianity.

And so he made plans for the construction of churches on the island.

Columbus also hoped to turn Hispaniola into an island from which Spain could trade gold and make large profits.

When Columbus arrived in Hispaniola, he found that the men he had left behind the previous year had all been killed and their settlement destroyed.

Columbus oversaw the construction of a new settlement, La Isabella, named after Isabella, the Queen of Spain.

New attempts were made to find gold, leading to more tensions, more disagreements between Spanish settlers and the indigenous population of Hispaniola.

In 1494 and 1495, Columbus led two campaigns, two missions against the Native Americans on Hispaniola.

1,600 Tainos were captured and enslaved during these conflicts, including the Taino leader.

Most of the enslaved Tainos were forced to mine for gold for the Spanish.

In 1503, Queen Isabella of Spain officially approved the enslavement of Native Americans who resisted Spanish control and efforts to convert them to Christianity.

The Taino population fell significantly at this time.

In 1509, the indigenous population of Hispaniola was estimated at 60,000 people.

By 1518, so just nine years later, the indigenous population was recorded as 11,000.

European diseases, warfare and deaths from their work as slaves all contributed to Taino deaths as Spanish settlement in Hispaniola began.

So now I want to check your knowledge and your understanding of what was happening in Hispaniola once Columbus returned in 1493.

So what were the Taino slaves forced to mine for the Spanish on Hispaniola? Was it coal, gold, or iron? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said B.

Taino slaves were forced to mine gold for the Spanish on Hispaniola.

The Spanish, especially Columbus, hoped that this would make them massive profits, allowing them to gain lots of riches from the Americas.

And the second question, what happened to the Taino population of Hispaniola under Spanish rule? Did it increase significantly, increase slightly? Did it stay the same, decrease slightly, or decrease significantly? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Well done to everybody who said the population decreased significantly.

Remember, we heard that whereas the population of indigenous people in Hispaniola was 60,000 strong in 1509, that fell to just 11,000 by 1518.

So 49,000 indigenous people on Hispaniola died in just nine years.

So now we're ready to put all of our knowledge about Columbus and Hispaniola into practise.

So we're gonna divide this task into two parts.

First of all, I want you to select an adjective from the following list, which best describes the impact of Spanish settlement on Native Americans in Hispaniola.

So was it beneficial, unimportant, inconvenient, or devastating? And for the second part of this task, I want you to then write one paragraph to justify your choice of adjective.

So that will need some examples to back up the choice of adjective that you went for.

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

Well done for your hard work on that task.

Now we're ready to check your answers to question one.

I asked you to select an adjective from the following list, which best describe the impact of Spanish settlement on Native Americans in Hispaniola.

Your choice of words was beneficial, unimportant, inconvenient, and devastating.

Devastating was the best of those adjectives for describing the impact of Spanish settlement on Native Americans.

So really well done if you selected that adjective.

Now we can check our answers to question two.

I asked you to write one paragraph to justify your choice of adjective.

So your answer might have included that Spanish settlement in Hispaniola was devastating for Native Americans because it led to many deaths.

The indigenous population had fallen to just 11,000 in 1518.

Many Tainos died resisting Spanish control from diseases or from being overworked mining for gold.

This shows that Spanish settlement was very bad for Native Americans on Hispaniola.

So really well done for all of your hard work on that task, especially if you managed to support your evidence in that paragraph with some explanation as well.

So now we've reached the end of our lesson on European exploration.

We're in a good position to summarise all of our learning from today.

Improvements in technology and the growth of the Ottoman Empire both encouraged European exploration.

The Americas became known as the New World to Europeans.

Columbus and Spain claimed the right to rule the lands they encountered in the Americas, and many Native Americans died as a result of European settlement in Hispaniola.

So thank you very much for joining me for today's lesson, and I really look forward to seeing you again as we think further about the European conquest in the Americas and its impact on Native Americans.