Texas Revolution
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50 free Texas Revolution trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Texas Revolution lasted barely seven months, yet it produced some of the most retold stories in American history: a doomed stand at the Alamo, a massacre at Goliad and a surprise victory at San Jacinto that created an independent republic. Behind the battles lay a decade of quarrels between Mexico and the settlers it had invited in, over land, slavery, taxes and who should govern. This quiz follows the whole road to revolution and beyond. It starts with the causes, moves through the first shots, the sieges and the retreat across Texas, and ends with the declaration of independence, the peace that followed and the way the war is remembered today. It suits Texas history students revising for a test, teachers looking for a classroom warm-up and anyone who wants to know more than the famous battle cry. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which former Tennessee congressman and frontier folk hero died defending the Alamo in 1836?
Davy Crockett
Davy Crockett reached the Alamo only about two weeks before Santa Anna's army did. He had set out for Texas after losing his 1835 re-election race.
Q 02What did Mexican dragoons try to take back from Texian settlers in 1835, sparking the Texas Revolution's first battle?
A borrowed cannon
A borrowed cannon, lent to the settlers in 1831 to fend off Comanche raids, was the prize. They refused to return it and raised a homemade flag daring the soldiers to come and take it.
Q 03Sam Houston's army routed Santa Anna at San Jacinto in April 1836 in a battle lasting about how long?
18 minutes
18 minutes was all it took to overrun the Mexican camp, though the killing went on for hours. Santa Anna himself slipped away and was captured the next day.
Q 04Which British rock drummer and singer gave Texas his collection of hundreds of Alamo artifacts in 2014?
Phil Collins
Phil Collins had already published a book about his hoard, The Alamo and Beyond, and narrated a light and sound show about the battle.
Q 05Santa Anna, who personally led the 1836 invasion of Texas, called himself which conqueror "of the West"?
Napoleon
Napoleon of the West was the title Santa Anna gave himself, his boldest piece of self-promotion after he defeated a Spanish invasion force at Tampico in 1829.
Q 06Before the 1836 siege made it famous, the Alamo in San Antonio had been founded by Spain as what?
A Catholic mission
A Catholic mission, San Antonio de Valero, was founded there in the 18th century. The name Alamo, Spanish for cottonwood, likely came from a military company posted there later.
Q 07Years after losing Texas, Santa Anna brought a shipment of chicle to New York, where it gave rise to which product?
Chewing gum
Chewing gum emerged after the American assigned to assist him failed to turn the sap into a rubber substitute. Santa Anna himself made no money from it.
Q 08Which Alamo co-commander, famed for a brawl called the Sandbar Fight, was bedridden during the final assault?
Jim Bowie
Jim Bowie led the Alamo's volunteers until an illness his doctors could not diagnose confined him to bed. The most widely accepted accounts say he died there.
Q 09During the 1836 siege of the Alamo, the blood-red flag Santa Anna's troops raised over San Antonio signalled what?
No quarter would be given
No quarter would be given, the flag warned. A Mexican decree issued weeks earlier classed armed foreigners fighting in Texas as pirates, and captured pirates were executed.
Q 10Santa Anna was captured the day after San Jacinto disguised in the uniform jacket of what rank?
A private
A private was what he passed for until other Mexican prisoners cried out in recognition of their commander. He had spent the night hiding in a marsh.
Q 11After leaving home as a Tennessee teenager, Sam Houston lived for three years among which Native American nation?
Cherokee
Cherokee villagers took in the teenage Houston and knew him as Raven. He went back to live among them in 1829 after resigning as governor of Tennessee.
Q 12What name was given to the 1836 flight of Texas settlers eastward ahead of Santa Anna's advancing army?
Runaway Scrape
Runaway Scrape was the name for the panic that emptied Texas settlements after the Alamo fell. Even the interim government packed up and fled with the civilians.
Q 13Texas declared independence from Mexico on which date in 1836, which was also Sam Houston's 43rd birthday?
March 2
Q 21Which Alamo survivor, spared with her infant daughter Angelina, carried news of the garrison's fall to Sam Houston?
Susanna Dickinson
Susanna Dickinson lost her husband Almaron in the battle. Her account of Santa Anna's strength led Houston to tell civilians to evacuate and to order his army to retreat.
Q 22Which town, nicknamed the Lexington of Texas, sent 32 men through Mexican lines to reinforce the besieged Alamo?
Gonzales
Gonzales got the nickname from newspapers after the revolution's opening skirmish was fought there. Its relief party slipped into the Alamo in the dark and died with the garrison.
Q 23On which Christian holy day in 1836 were hundreds of Texian prisoners shot in the Goliad Massacre?
Palm Sunday
March 2 is still celebrated as Texas Independence Day. The declaration was adopted while the Alamo was under siege, four days before it fell.
Q 14Which 26-year-old lawyer commanded the Alamo and addressed a plea for help to the people of Texas and all Americans?
William B. Travis
William B. Travis sent the appeal out by courier on the second day of the siege. Transcripts were appearing in newspapers about a week later.
Q 15What did the captive Santa Anna sign in May 1836, ordering Mexican troops out of Texas?
Treaties of Velasco
Treaties of Velasco came as a pair, one public and one secret. Mexico's government ratified neither, on the grounds that its president had signed under duress as a prisoner.
Q 16Before the Texas Revolution, Texas shared a Mexican state with which neighbour, a union settlers petitioned to end?
Coahuila
Coahuila dominated the joint state, whose capital lay hundreds of miles from the Texas settlements. The Convention of 1833 asked Mexico to make Texas a state of its own.
Q 17Mexico's Law of April 6, 1830, a leading grievance behind the Texas Revolution, banned further what?
American immigration
American immigration was halted after a general toured Texas and warned that the United States might annex it. The same law stopped settlers bringing in more slaves.
Q 18What Spanish title was held by Stephen F. Austin and other agents contracted by Mexico to settle families in Texas?
Empresario
Empresario still means businessman or entrepreneur in modern Spanish. Each agent received a sizeable land grant in return for recruiting settler families.
Q 19Early in the Texas Revolution, many Texians claimed to fight for which federalist charter Santa Anna had overturned?
Constitution of 1824
Constitution of 1824 was the cause the Texian delegates pledged themselves to in November 1835. Outright independence was declared only four months later.
Q 20Stephen F. Austin, arrested in 1834 on suspicion of inciting insurrection, was held for over a year in which capital?
Mexico City
Mexico City was where Austin was taken after being seized in Saltillo. Officials believed he was steering Texas toward independence.
Palm Sunday was the day the prisoners were marched out in three columns between rows of soldiers. They had surrendered believing they would be freed within weeks.
Q 24Which Texian scout captured a Mexican courier whose dispatches revealed Santa Anna's position days before San Jacinto?
Deaf Smith
Deaf Smith, nicknamed for hearing loss since childhood, was then sent to destroy Vince's Bridge. Santa Anna fled toward it after the battle and found it gone.
Q 25Which Tejano captain carried a message out of the besieged Alamo and later fought at San Jacinto?
Juan Seguín
Juan Seguín returned to San Antonio that June to accept the formal surrender of the Mexican forces at the Alamo. A Texas city is named after him.
Q 26Which Texian colonel, a West Point dropout, surrendered at Coleto Creek and was executed with his men at Goliad?
James Fannin
James Fannin asked to be shot in the heart, not the face, and to be given a Christian burial. He was shot in the face and his body was burned.
Q 27Which New Jersey-born lawyer was chosen as interim president of Texas by the 1836 independence convention?
David G. Burnet
David G. Burnet had once lived for two years among the Comanche. As interim president he put his name beside Santa Anna's on the agreements that ended the war.
Q 28Which Yucatán-born former Mexican finance minister became the first vice president of the Republic of Texas?
Lorenzo de Zavala
Lorenzo de Zavala was Mexico's minister to France when Santa Anna assumed dictatorial powers. He resigned in protest, ignored an order to return home and settled in Texas.
Q 29Which former Nashville newspaper editor is credited as the main author of the Texas Declaration of Independence?
George Childress
George Childress had been in Texas for less than three months when the convention met. He probably wrote most of the text himself, though four other delegates sat on the committee.
Q 30Which Kentucky-born Texian rallied volunteers to storm San Antonio in December 1835 and was shot dead in the assault?
Ben Milam
Ben Milam was killed instantly by a Mexican rifleman while studying a church tower through a telescope. The town's garrison surrendered a few days later.