Postage stamps and postal history of the Gambia Postage stamps and postal history of the Gambia This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of the Gambia. The Gambia is a country in West Africa surrounded by Senegal except for a short coastline on the Atlantic Ocean in the west. The Gambia River, from which the country takes its name, flows through it. The capital city is Banjul. The first stamps of Gambia were issued in March 1869. The early issues featured an embossed portrait of Queen Victoria. The Gambia achieved independence on 18 February 1965, as a constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth. On 24
History of the Gambia Gambia too. In 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the President of the United States, stopped overnight in Bathurst en route to and from the Casablanca Conference. This marked the first visit to the African continent by a sitting US President. The visit hardened his views against British colonial rule. Appalled, as he was, by the poverty and disease that was present there, he wrote to Churchill describing the territory as a "hell-hole". After the Second World War, the pace of reform increased. The economy of the Gambia, like other African countries at the time, was very heavily orientated towards agriculture. Reliance