Q 01/05

Which Puritan colony banished Roger Williams in 1635, leading him to found Providence the next year?

A) Massachusetts Bay

B) Plymouth Colony

C) New Hampshire Province

D) New Netherland

Answer · why

A) Massachusetts Bay

Massachusetts Bay cast him out for attacking its land charters and its church rule. The settlement he started took in other outcasts and grew into a h...

Q 02/05

Which British customs ship did Rhode Islanders burn in 1772, over a year before the Boston Tea Party?

A) HMS Somerset

B) HMS Romney

C) HMS Gaspee

D) HMS Rose

Answer · why

C) HMS Gaspee

HMS Gaspee ran aground while chasing a local packet boat, and colonists rowed out that night, shot its commander and burned the schooner to the waterl...

Q 03/05

Rhode Island was the only one of the thirteen states to send no delegates to which 1787 gathering?

A) Annapolis Convention

B) Constitutional Convention

C) Virginia Ratifying Convention

D) Hartford Convention

Answer · why

B) Constitutional Convention

The Constitutional Convention met without Rhode Island, which feared a strong central government and held out until 1790, the last of the thirteen sta...

Q 04/05

When Roger Williams's grave was opened in 1860, what had grown into the rough shape of his body?

A) A wild grapevine root

B) An oak sapling

C) A blackberry bramble

D) An apple tree root

Answer · why

D) An apple tree root

An apple tree root had followed the line of his spine, split at the hips and bent at the knees. The Rhode Island Historical Society has looked after i...

Q 05/05

Roger Williams of Rhode Island taught Dutch to which great English poet of the 1600s?

A) John Donne

B) Andrew Marvell

C) John Milton

D) John Dryden

Answer · why

C) John Milton

John Milton, who went on to write Paradise Lost, traded lessons with him: Williams taught Dutch and got refresher lessons in Hebrew and Greek in retur...