Q 01/05

What is the capital and largest city of Liberia?

A) Buchanan

B) Gbarnga

C) Monrovia

D) Freetown

Answer · why

C) Monrovia

Monrovia was named for US President James Monroe, in whose term the settlement was founded as a home for free Black settlers from the US.

Q 02/05

The site of Liberia's capital was bought in 1821 for guns, tobacco and which spirit?

A) Rum

B) Gin

C) Whisky

D) Brandy

Answer · why

A) Rum

Rum went into the bargain with gunpowder, umbrellas, hats and mirrors: a US naval officer and the settlers' agent struck the deal with local rulers fo...

Q 03/05

Which organisation, formed in 1816, sent free Black settlers from the United States to West Africa?

A) Royal African Company

B) American Colonization Society

C) Sierra Leone Company

D) Freedmen's Bureau

Answer · why

B) American Colonization Society

The American Colonization Society, founded in 1816 with backers including Henry Clay, planted its first lasting settlement in 1822; its members ranged...

Q 04/05

Liberia's early settlers included thousands of 'recaptives', Africans freed from what?

A) Saharan slave caravans

B) Intercepted slave ships

C) Sierra Leone's prisons

D) Portuguese trading forts

Answer · why

B) Intercepted slave ships

Intercepted slave ships supplied them: after the Atlantic slave trade was banned, the US Navy put several thousand Africans freed from seized slavers ...

Q 05/05

When Liberia declared independence in 1847, it became the world's second Black republic after which country?

A) Jamaica

B) Cuba

C) Haiti

D) Sierra Leone

Answer · why

C) Haiti

Haiti had won its independence from France in 1804; Liberia followed on 26 July 1847, when its settlers broke from the private organisation that had g...