Blood on the River
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40 free Blood on the River trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Blood on the River: James Town 1607 tells the founding of England's first lasting American settlement through the eyes of a boy who was really there. Samuel Collier starts the story as a street thief with a quick temper and nobody to trust. By the end he has crossed an ocean, served Captain John Smith, learned from the Powhatan people and worked out that surviving in Virginia takes more than looking after yourself. This quiz follows Elisa Carbone's novel from start to finish. Early questions cover Samuel's rough beginnings and the long, quarrelsome voyage, where gentlemen and commoners are at each other's throats before land is even in sight. The middle of the quiz deals with the settlement itself: sickness, shortages, arguments over who should lead, and the uneasy friendship with Chief Powhatan, Pocahontas and Namontack. Later questions reach the closing chapters, the real people behind the characters and how the author did her research. It works as a reading check for students getting ready for an Accelerated Reader quiz or a class test, and as a ready-made multiple choice set for teachers and book clubs. The first questions are the gentlest, a few near the end reward close readers, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
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Q 01In Blood on the River, what does Captain Smith order Samuel to do on a storm-tossed ship to teach him cooperation?
Stand on one foot
Stand on one foot is the order, and on a pitching deck Samuel cannot do it. Smith's lesson is that the wilderness is the same: nobody lasts there without other people to lean on.
Q 02In Blood on the River, what marks out Captain Christopher Newport, the expedition's leader, when Samuel first sees him?
A missing arm
A missing arm sets the fleet's commander apart on the dock. The real Newport lost his right arm in 1590, long before he sailed three shiploads of settlers to Virginia.
Q 03In Blood on the River, what does Captain Smith teach Samuel as a weapon mightier than any sword?
The Algonquian language
The Algonquian language is the weapon, though Samuel had hoped for a musket. Smith tells him the words will protect him inside the fort as well as outside it.
Q 04In Blood on the River, which rule does Captain Smith lay down for everyone, himself included, on becoming president?
Work or go hungry
Work or go hungry was the rule, and Smith pitched in himself. Sworn in on September 10, 1608, he shared out rations fairly, which made him popular with nearly everyone but a few gentlemen.
Q 05In Blood on the River, what contest does young Pocahontas win against Samuel on her first visit to James Town?
A running race
A running race, and losing to a little girl stings Samuel's pride. She had stepped out of a canoe loaded with food for the settlers, wearing strings of pearls and copper.
Q 06In Blood on the River, which James Town president is arrested for hoarding eggs, meat and wine while sick men die?
Edward Wingfield
Edward Wingfield stays in the finest health while half the settlers sicken and die. Samuel overhears the secret of the hidden stores and breaks a forced oath of silence to report it.
Q 07In Blood on the River, what destroys the cabins and storehouse at James Town while a party is away hunting gold?
A fire
A fire that starts in one cabin burns nearly everything inside the fort. The settlers get through the winter only because Powhatan's people bring deerskins, bear furs and food.
Q 08In Blood on the River, how does Captain Smith stop the gentlemen sailing off on the Discovery with all the food?
Aims cannons at it
Aims cannons at it, then threatens to sink them unless they come ashore. The gentlemen had meant to abandon some twenty-five commoners, and only a windless day kept the vessel in range.
Q 09In Blood on the River, to which downriver settlement does Samuel take baby Virginia, where the novel ends in safety?
Point Comfort
Point Comfort keeps Samuel, Ann and the baby fed through the winter that devastates James Town. The spot, at the tip of the Virginia Peninsula, is now part of the city of Hampton.
Q 10In Blood on the River, which family keepsake does Samuel Collier steal back from a pawn shop in the opening chapter?
A locket
A locket lands him in front of a magistrate, at a time when theft could mean the gallows. The pawnbroker and his son catch Samuel asleep, still wearing it.
Q 11In Blood on the River, which ship, the largest of the fleet, carries Samuel and Captain Smith across the Atlantic?
Susan Constant
Susan Constant was the flagship, rated at 120 tons. Samuel and the other passengers live on the 'tween deck and may go up top only to empty slop buckets or fetch food.
Q 12In Blood on the River, which post under Captain Smith takes Samuel Collier from the streets to the New World?
A page
A page is what the real Samuel Collier was too. His name is on the Virginia Company's list of the first settlers, one of only four boys who made the 1607 crossing.
Q 13In Blood on the River, where does a sympathetic magistrate send Samuel Collier instead of to the gallows?
An orphanage
Q 21In Blood on the River, which charge puts Captain Smith in irons two months into the voyage?
Plotting a mutiny
Plotting a mutiny, to kill the council and make himself ruler, is the accusation. The real Smith faced the same charge on the 1607 voyage, and Newport planned to execute him for it.
Q 22In Blood on the River, why does Reverend Hunt say he is sailing to Virginia, unlike the gentlemen chasing gold?
To spread Christianity
To spread Christianity among the Virginia natives is his aim, along with finding survivors of the lost Roanoke settlement. His first attempt fails: the listener answers with his own people's creation story.
Q 23In Blood on the River, which feeling does Reverend Hunt tell Samuel to base every decision on, rather than fear?
An orphanage run by Reverend Hunt takes him in. Samuel brawls with the other boys there until he and one of his rivals are picked to sail for Virginia as servants.
Q 14In Blood on the River, who taught Samuel Collier to read, a skill that Captain Smith asks about during the voyage?
His mother
His mother taught him, having learned herself from the son of the family's gentleman landlord. That friendship ended when it was discovered and the young noble was sent away.
Q 15In Blood on the River, which Roman does Captain Smith say he is imitating by calmly writing while in chains?
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar kept his composure as a prisoner, Smith explains, so he does the same. The calm pays off: other passengers start to respect him and to doubt his accusers.
Q 16In Blood on the River, which role does Reverend Hunt call too valuable to lose, saving Captain Smith from a gallows?
Translator
Translator was the one job nobody else aboard could do. Smith had made sure of it, greeting island traders with words borrowed from another tribe so the gentlemen would think they needed him.
Q 17In Blood on the River, which sin does Reverend Hunt preach against on the Sunday Captain Smith sits in chains?
Lying
Lying is his target, because the accusation against Smith was invented. Samuel prays that the sermon will save his master, and by lunchtime the reverend is unlocking the shackles.
Q 18In Blood on the River, which Caribbean tree does Henry chop into, leaving him covered in painful welts from its sap?
Manchineel
Manchineel is one of the most toxic trees in the world, with a milky sap that blisters skin on contact. Henry was clearing a path so the gentlemen could stroll to the island's baths.
Q 19In Blood on the River, what does Reverend Hunt link to the summer sickness that strikes James Town a second time?
Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes arrive just as the fever does, the reverend notices. A year earlier the dying men had blamed a curse, salty water or the damp, and about half of them never recovered.
Q 20In Blood on the River, which president loses office after ordering sick men to build him a large house in the woods?
John Ratcliffe
John Ratcliffe wanted the house while fever had the settlers barely able to walk. The demand cost him the presidency, and the commoner he looked down on, Captain Smith, was chosen instead.
Love
Love is the test the reverend teaches, and at first Samuel objects that he has nobody left to care about. Hunt repeats the advice shortly before he dies, and Samuel thanks him for believing in him.
Q 24In Blood on the River, which carpenter carves a wooden chest for Ann Burras and later marries her at James Town?
John Laydon
John Laydon wins the only single woman in a fort full of bachelors, helped by Samuel's tip that she likes flowers. The real couple married in December 1608, about two months after she landed.
Q 25In Blood on the River, which English servant boy goes to live with the Powhatans when Namontack comes to James Town?
Thomas Savage
Thomas Savage was handed over in a goodwill swap soon after he landed. The real boy was about thirteen, and he ended up settling for good on Virginia's Eastern Shore.
Q 26In Blood on the River, what has Chief Powhatan done to Captain Smith that makes James Town one of his tribes?
Adopted him
Adopted him, which in the chief's eyes makes every settler his to look after. Namontack explains it to the boys, and Samuel guesses the gentlemen will not enjoy belonging to anyone.
Q 27In Blood on the River, which defence, once rejected by the president, do settlers rush to build after a night raid?
A palisade
A palisade goes up fast, though Samuel notices who does the building. Sailors, soldiers and labourers haul the timber while the gentlemen hang back to keep their velvet clean.
Q 28In Blood on the River, what does the Virginia Company forbid settlers to write about the New World in letters home?
Anything bad
Anything bad was off limits in the mail. Later, when shiploads of families with children land, a friend of Samuel's blames that rule for their not knowing the danger.
Q 29Blood on the River opens with what, delivered to Chief Powhatan, about a tribe arriving from the Chesapeake Bay?
A prophecy
A prophecy warns that the newcomers will fight Powhatan's people three times, and that after the third battle his kingdom will be gone. The fear of it hangs over every meeting with the English.
Q 30In Blood on the River, what does Samuel hurl at Master Archer's head as Captain Smith is dragged away in chains?
A rock
A rock flies first, and Samuel charges after it. He trips before he can land a punch, and Reverend Hunt hauls him off to the chapel to pray for a cooler temper.