0866 TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO (Trinidad) - The White Hall

Originally called Rosenweg, the White Hall is one of The Magnificent Seven (a group of mansions located at the northwest corner of Queen's Park Savannah on Maraval Road, in Port of Spain), and was built by the cocoa planter Joseph Leon Agostini. The construction began in 1904, in accordance with Agostini's own design, influenced by the Moorish Mediterranean style and the architecture of Corsica from where the Agostini family originated.

0714 TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO (Trinidad) - La Brea Pitch Lake

The Pitch Lake is the largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world (40 ha), located at La Brea (Spanish for "the tar"), a town in southwestern Trinidad. It has fascinated explorers and scientists, as well as attracting tourists, since its discovery by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1595. In 2011 was included in the Tentative List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

0447 TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO (Trinidad) - President's House

Located next to the Botanical Gardens in Port of Spain, the President's House was built between 1873 and 1876 and was used as the residence of the Governor of Trinidad and Tobago until 1958, when it became the residence of the Governor-General of the West Indies Federation. In 1962, when Trinidad and Tobago attained independence, the house became a museum and Art Gallery, and then once again the residence of the Governors-General. In 1976, after the proclamation of the republic, the building was designated the residence of the President.

0278 TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO (Trinidad) – Stollmeyer's Castle

In the 1830s, among the more than 80,000 inhabitants who lived in Philadelphia was Conrad F. Stolmmeyer, a German immigrant who edited a German language newspaper. Because of his anti slavery activity, he had to leave the United States, originally intending to set up a Utopian community in South America, with the German American philosopher John Adolphus Etzler (1791-1846?), who published in 1833 the book The Paradise within the Reach of all Men, without Labor, by Powers of Nature and Machinery: An Address to all intelligent men, in two parts.  Due to plague, they couldn't land in Caracas and settled in Trinidad.

0240 TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO (Tobago) - Now silent guns

It’s said that Tobago is a small island with a big history, and I tend to believe that is true. Between Tobago's discovery by Christopher Columbus in 1498, when he called it Bella Forma (Beautifully Formed) and its final possession by British forces in 1793, the island was renamed several times as it was settled by Courlanders (Latvians), Dutch, Germans, Jews, British, French, and Scandinavians, each of them building forts to protect its newly won possession, which it changed the "owner" 33 times, as I say here (you can find a detailed timeline of Tobago's history here).

0202 TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO (Tobago) – Tobago from tobacco or vice versa

I talked here about Trinidad and Tobago flag and about the largest island of this union, respectively Trinidad. Behold that I have now received a postcard also showing the flag, but also the map of the second island in size and importance of this archipelagic state from the southern Caribbean, Tobago, much smaller (approximately 42km long and 10km wide) and bearing a name derived, it seems, from the word tobacco. Or vice versa. Located in the northeast of Trinidad and southeast of Grenada, Tobago lies outside the hurricane belt. But not all the hurricanes respect the rule established by meteorologists, so that the consequences of Hurricane Flora on September 30, 1963, were so drastic, that they changed the island's economy.

The first European visitor was Cristopher Columbus on his third voyage (1498), but the first settlers were Courlanders in 1654. It changed hands 33 times between Courland, Spain, England, France, Sweden, and the Dutch Republic until in 1814 it became part of the British Empire. In 1889 Tobago was united with Trinidad into a British crown colony. In 1962 they became an independent Commonwealth nation of Trinidad and Tobago, in 1976 a republic. The capital is Scarborough, with a population around 17,000, almost one-third of the population of the island, composed mainly of African descent, although with a growing proportion of Trinidadians of East Indian descent and Europeans.

The stamp is the same as the one from the first postcard, but still I can't say anything about it.


sender: Nalini Mohammed (direct swap)
sent from San Fernando (Trinidad and Tobago), on 26.03.2012

0172 TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO (Trinidad) – Vitality, purity and strength

Trinidad and Tobago is located in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles, and consists of two main islands, Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous smaller landforms. Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the main islands, comprising about 94% of the total area and 96% of the total population of the country. Trinidad was a Spanish colony from the arrival of Columbus in 1498 to the capitulation of the Spanish Governor on the arrival of a British fleet on 1797 (when the population of the island was 17,718 - 2,151 with European ancestry, 4,476 "free blacks and people of colour", 10,009 slaves and 1,082 Amerindians). During the same period, the island of Tobago changed hands between Spanish, British, French, Dutch and Courlander colonizers. The country obtained independence in 1962, becoming a republic in 1976.

The flag of Trinidad and Tobago was adopted upon independence from Great Britain on 31 August 1962 and is red with a white-edged black diagonal band from the upper hoist side to the lower fly side. The red is said to represent the vitality of the land and people, the warmth and energy of the sun, and courage and friendliness. The white is said to represent the sea, the purity of national aspirations, and the equality of all men, and the black represents strength, unity and purpose, and the natural resources.

About the stamp I don't know anything, and to my disappointment the postal worker didn't bother to postmarked the postcard.


sender: Nalini Mohammed (direct swap)
sent from San Fernando (Trinidad and Tobago), on 23.03.2012