Hello, I'm Mr. Marchant 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 in the Americas, where we've been 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 England's first successful colonists interacted, that means acted towards Native Americans.

In today's lesson, we'll be building on some of our prior knowledge of how European attempts to make money in the New World, ended up leading to significant problems for Native Americans.

For today's lesson, we have five key words that are gonna help us work our way through.

Those are Native American, assembly, Powhatan, tension, and reservations.

Native Americans are the original inhabitants of North and South America and the Caribbean Islands.

An assembly is a group who meet to make laws for their community.

The Powhatan are a native American nation who lived in a region which became Virginia.

Tensions are feelings of anger or fear between two groups.

And reservations are areas of land set aside for a community of people to live on.

So today's lesson is gonna be split into three parts and we are gonna begin by thinking about the settling of Jamestown.

The first successful English settlement in the Americas was founded at Jamestown.

Initially, it did not look like the colony would succeed though.

In May 1607, a group of over 100 men and boys from England arrived in the Americas and established a new colony at a location they called Jamestown.

You can see the location of Jamestown shown on the map of Virginia currently on your screen.

However, most of the English colonists had little survival instincts.

They proved to depend too much on the supplies they originally brought with them from England.

Starving and suffering from diseases, 44 outta 104 men died within just the first few months.

Although the English survived their first winter, the colonists wasted most of the year in 1608, searching for gold instead of planting food crops.

When a group of supply ships were wrecked in a hurricane in 1609, the starving times began.

From 1609 to 1610, there was no food in Jamestown and many colonists died.

The situation began to improve when a supply ship finally arrived from England in 1610.

Jamestown's success really took off after 1612, though.

One colonist, John Rolfe, had arrived with tobacco and began to plant this.

Tobacco grew successfully around Jamestown, and from March 1614, was sold back to Europe for a good profit.

Most colonists switched from searching for gold to growing tobacco for trade.

Settlers needed more land to grow increasing amounts of tobacco, so the English colony began to expand.

In 1619, a general assembly was founded in Jamestown.

This allowed colonists to elect representatives who could create laws on their behalf.

So now we're in a really great position to just check some of our knowledge about how the English settled at Jamestown.

So a quick question.

What did colonists who settled in Jamestown hope to find? Was it gold, Native Americans, spices, or tobacco? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the correct answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said gold.

We need to remember, especially in years such as 1608, that colonists spent a lot of their time searching for gold, really prioritising that over other activities.

And what did colonists at Jamestown call the difficult period from 1609 to 1610? Was it the dangerous times, the deadly times, the sickly times, or the starving times? Again, pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Okay, some really good work on that task.

And well done to everybody who said the correct answer was D, the starving times.

From 1609 to 1610, the colonists at Jamestown had no food and the starving times only came to an end when a new supply ship arrived in 1610.

Okay, and we'll just use one more question to check our understanding of how the English settled at Jamestown.

There are five events from A to E shown on the screen.

I want you to start with the earliest and sort these events into chronological order.

You just need to write out the letters A to E in the correct chronological order.

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

Okay, really well done on that task.

Lost to think about when we're trying to get these events into the right chronological order.

Your answers should have looked like this: from B to C, E, D, and then A.

To be specific, that meant the English settlement at Jamestown obviously began with English settlers founding Jamestown.

That happened in 1607.

But 44 out of 104 settlers died in just the first few months of the colony's existence.

And from 1609 to 1610, Jamestown experienced the starving times when there simply was not enough food for the colonists.

However, things began to look better by 1612 when tobacco was first introduced to Jamestown.

And then by 1619, in a period when the colony had continued to grow, it gained its first assembly, the Virginia Assembly having been founded in that year so that colonists could make some of their own laws for themselves.

So now that we've checked all of our knowledge, we are gonna put it into practise.

I want you to complete the timeline by adding in the missing events from England's early settlement at Jamestown.

So you can see our timeline has the very first event added in, that in May 1607, colonists founded Jamestown.

But you need to identify what was happening from 1609 to 1610, in March 1614, and also in July 1619.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your responses.

Okay, some great work on that task, lots for us to think about.

So your answers should have looked like this.

From 1609 to 1610, Jamestown suffered from the starving times.

In March 1614, tobacco from Jamestown was first sold to Europe.

And in July 1619, the Virginian Assembly was founded.

So really well done for all your hard work on that task, especially if you got all three of those events correct on your timeline.

And now we are ready to move onto the second part of our our lesson where we're gonna think about support from the Powhatan.

It's important for us to remember that indigenous nations also lived in the area around Jamestown.

The Powhatan were the most important Native American nation in the area.

They were the most powerful and they had the largest population too.

When the English found they did not have enough food to feed themselves during the winter of 1607, they looked to others for support.

In December of 1607, the colonist John Smith was sent to meet the Powhatan, a powerful indigenous nation.

The Powhatan provided Smith with supplies of food such as maize which can be used to make cornbread.

These supplies enabled the English colonists to survive their very first winter in the Americas.

Now that we've heard a bit about the support which the Powhatan were offering to English colonists at Jamestown, we're ready to check our knowledge.

So we have a statement on the screen.

Colonists at Jamestown did not produce enough food for themselves to start with.

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 was true.

The colonists at Jamestown did not produce enough food for themselves to start with, but we want to be able to justify our answer here.

So we have two justifications, which is shown up on the screen: that the land around Jamestown was not good enough for farming, or that colonists spent most of their time searching for gold rather than farming.

Which of those two justifications help show that our statement was true? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

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

The correct answer was B.

We need to remember that in 1607, and especially during 1608, colonists spent most of their time searching for gold.

And it was because of this that they did not produce enough food.

So how did the Powhatan react to English colonists' food shortages in 1607? Did they attack the colonists, ignore the colonists, or supply the colonists? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Okay, well done for your work on that task, especially if you said C.

The Powhatan saw that the English did not have enough food.

And when the colonist John Smith came to ask for help, the Powhatan supplied the colonists with food like maize, which allowed the English to make cornbread and survived their first winter.

Now, having checked our knowledge there, we are in a great position to be able to put all of our new ideas and all of our new knowledge into practise.

So I want you to complete the following sentence, and then write a paragraph to justify your answer.

So the sentence you need to complete says: Relations between English colonists at Jamestown and the Powhatan could be described as.

And you need to pick an adjective which you think is appropriate to describe that relationship.

Then, you are gonna write a paragraph to justify it with the starter, "I think this because." So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your responses.

Okay, well done for all of your effort on that task.

So I asked you to complete the sentence that said: Relations between English colonists at Jamestown and the Powhatan could be described as, and you may have said co-operative.

Now, you then needed to justify your answer to write a paragraph to back it up.

So you may have written, I think this because when English colonists suffered from food shortages in 1607, the Powhatan provided some of their own crops to help them.

Now we're ready to move on to the third and final part of our lesson today where we're gonna focus on tensions between the English colonists and the Powhatan.

The starving times in Jamestown were made worse by rising tensions with the Powhatan.

By 1609, the Powhatan were attacking Jamestown as they were fed up with the English colonists relying on indigenous people for food.

The Powhatan had also become increasingly annoyed at English colonists interfering with the land they hunted on.

War between the Powhatan and the English lasted for five years.

In 1613, Captain Samuel Argall kidnapped Pocahontas, the daughter of the Powhatan Chief.

Pocahontas was brought to Jamestown and converted to Christianity.

The colonists did this to force the Powhatan to make peace.

In 1614, the war between the Native Americans and the English colonists came to an end when Pocahontas was married to John Rolfe, an English settler.

You can see an image of Pocahontas on the screen and another drawing of her during her marriage to John Rolfe, which brought an end to that conflict between the Powhatan and the English colonists at Jamestown.

So let's just check our understanding of what we've just gone through together.

We have a statement on the screen.

Pocahontas' marriage to John Rolfe shows the English and the Powhatan got on well.

Is that statement true or false? Pause video here and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

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

Pocahontas' marriage to John Rolfe does not show that the English and Powhatan got on well, but we need to be able to justify our answer.

So two justifications have just shown up on the screen.

One says that Pocahontas was captured to pressure the Powhatan into making peace.

The other says Pocahontas was captured to punish the Powhatan for fighting English colonists.

Which one of those two justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to hear the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that statement A is correct.

So Pocahontas was married to John Rolfe in order to pressure the Powhatan into making peace.

In fact, Pocahontas was kidnapped by the English in the first place, and that's why she was in the right location to be married to one of the English settlers.

Despite the marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe, peace did not last between the English and the Powhatan.

The success of tobacco farming encouraged thousands of new settlers to move to Jamestown and the surrounding areas in just a short period of time.

As more English colonists moved to the area, land was taken away from the indigenous population.

In 1622, the Powhatan fought back.

An attack on Jamestown killed 347 colonists.

This began 10 years of war.

The attack of 1622, which colonists called a massacre, was used as an excuse by the English to treat Native Americans more harshly.

Powhatan warriors and their families were killed, and indigenous fields used for farming were burned by the English.

Although the Powhatan and the English made peace in 1632, the continued growth of the English colony led to further conflicts in the 1640s and 1670s.

By the end of the 17th century, the Powhatan had been forced onto reservations as the English claimed more and more land for themselves.

So let's check our understanding of that extra bit of information about tensions with the Powhatan that we've just come across.

How did English tobacco farming affect relations between colonists and the Powhatan? Did it improve relations because the Powhatan considered it valuable to trade for? Worsened relations because the Powhatan thought it was too unhealthy? Or worsened relations because the Powhatan thought it took up too much land? So 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.

Tobacco farming took up lots of land, and because it was successful, more English colonists moved to the area and used more land to grow even more tobacco.

And this is why the Powhatan increasingly became angry at the English by the end of the 1610s, at the start of the 1620s.

And let's try one more question.

What happened to many of the Powhatan after their wars with English colonists? Were they executed for challenging the English? Forced to marry the English? Or forced onto reservations by the English? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

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

Many of the Powhatan were forced onto reservations by English, especially in the 1640s after they lost these conflicts to the English colonists.

So now that we've checked our understanding, we're ready to put all of our new knowledge about English tensions with the Powhatan into practise.

We have a statement on the screen.

It says, "The history of Jamestown after 1609 shows that colonists and Native Americans were able to live together peacefully." How far do you agree? I want you to write one or two paragraphs to explain your answer.

As part of your response, I also want you to include as many of the following keywords as possible: Powhatan, tension, and reservations.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your responses.

Okay, well done for all of your hard effort on that task, a lot for us to think about when we're responding to this statement.

So your answer may have included: The history of Jamestown does not show that colonists and Native Americans were able to co-operate and live together peacefully.

Although the Powhatan helped English colonists when they ran out of food in 1607, there were also many conflicts between the two groups.

You may have also gone a little bit further in your answer and written something like: For example, the Powhatan and English fought for 10 years between 1622 and 1632.

This shows that there was lots of tension between colonists and Native Americans.

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

And that means we've arrived at the end of our lesson thinking about the first successful English colonies in the Americas.

To summarise our learning from today, we have seen that England's first successful colony in the Americas was at Jamestown.

Colonists were initially helped by the local Powhatan nation.

But tensions rose between the colonists and Native Americans leading to multiple conflicts.

And defeat in these wars led to the Powhatan being forced onto reservations.

So today's lesson is another important one in helping us understand why was the European conquest in Americas so devastating for Native Americans.

So thank you for all of your hard work during today's lesson, and I really look forward to seeing you again in future as we think further about why this European conquest was so devastating for Native Americans.