Q 01/05

The English word 'slave' comes from the name of which European people, often captured and sold in medieval times?

A) Slavs

B) Saxons

C) Celts

D) Goths

Answer · why

A) Slavs

Slavs were sold into bondage in such numbers that the Medieval Latin word Sclavus, which first meant a member of that people, came to mean anyone held...

Q 02/05

Which patron saint, born in Roman Britain, was kidnapped by pirates at sixteen and enslaved as a herder for six years?

A) George

B) Andrew

C) Patrick

D) Nicholas

Answer · why

C) Patrick

Saint Patrick escaped, trained as a cleric and then chose to go back as a missionary to Ireland, the island where he had been held captive.

Q 03/05

Which great writer spent five years as a captive in Algiers after Barbary pirates seized his ship off Spain in 1575?

A) Lope de Vega

B) Miguel de Cervantes

C) Christopher Marlowe

D) William Shakespeare

Answer · why

B) Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes tried to escape four times before a religious order that specialised in ransoming Christian captives bought his freedom. Don Quixo...

Q 04/05

Which famous New York thoroughfare held the city's first official slave market, opened at its East River end in 1711?

A) Broadway

B) Canal Street

C) Fifth Avenue

D) Wall Street

Answer · why

D) Wall Street

Wall Street is named after a defensive wall that enslaved Africans helped to build for the Dutch colony. The market, a roofed wooden shed, traded peop...

Q 05/05

Which US state's vote to ratify the constitutional ban on slavery, cast only in 1995, was not certified until 2013?

A) Kentucky

B) Mississippi

C) Delaware

D) South Carolina

Answer · why

B) Mississippi

Mississippi had rejected the measure in December 1865 and let it stand for 130 years. Its late vote in favour then stayed uncertified for another 18 y...