Postage stamps and postal history of Trinidad and Tobago Postage stamps and postal history of Trinidad and Tobago This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidad and Tobago lies northeast of Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles. Trinidad and Tobago was a Spanish colony from the times of Christopher Columbus to 1802, when it was ceded to Britain. The country obtained independence in 1962. The first stamps of Trinidad were the famous Lady McLeod, a private local post, stamps of 1847. The first definitives for Trinidad were issued in 1851. Tobago used stamps of Trinidad from 1860. Stamps
Principality of Trinidad Principality of Trinidad The Principality of Trinidad was a short-lived unrecognized state declared in 1893 when the American James Harden-Hickey claimed the uninhabited Trindade Island in the South Atlantic. He declared himself James I, Prince of Trinidad, and intended for the islands to become a military dictatorship under his leadership. Britain and Brazil later argued over the territory, and it is now a part of the state of Espírito Santo in southeastern Brazil. The original name of the island, "Trindade", is Portuguese for "trinity"; "Trinidad" is the Spanish cognate. It is unclear why Harden-Hickley chose to translate the name from