2026 is the year in which the United States of America commemorates the 250th anniversary of the rebellion of the 13 British colonies - Virginia (founded by the English in 1604), Massachusetts (founded 1620 or 1630), New Hampshire (1623), New York (founded by the Dutch in 1624 and English from 1664), Maryland (1634), Rhode Island (1636), Connecticut (1636), Delaware (founded by the Dutch in 1624, resettled by Swedes in 1638, then taken by theDutch again in 1655 and finally seized by the English in 1664), North Carolina (1653/63), New Jersey (1664), Pennsylvania (1681) and Georgia (1732).
In the Seven Years War (1756 to 1761) the British necessarily fought the French in north America, assisted by their allies, the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, to protect the British colonies and those in Canada. After the British victory at the end of the war, the Westminster Parliament resolved to tax the Americans to ensure they paid towards their continuing protection by the British. The Americans really did not like paying these taxes and eventually, after various acts of vandalism including the infamous Boston Tea Party, they rebelled and conflict broke out.
A Second Congress of representatives of the Thirteen colonies met in Philadelphia (as did the first held in autumn 1774 wherein twelve of the colonies - Georgia was not represented - called on their king, George III, to remove some of the laws introduced by the British Parliament which worked against the Americans but the appeal was unsuccessful) in the summer of 1776 and this culminated in an illegal unilateral declaration of independence on 4 July and the production of a worthy document known ever since as the Declaration of Independence and signed by numerous American worthies of the time. The United States of America was born, a war broke out between the British and their former colonists and the course of history was set which eventually resulted in the their descendants electing Trump as their president. And just think, they could have had King Charles III and Queen Camilla instead now if they had paid their taxes 250 years ago.
To commemorate this notable anniversary, the United States Post Office has issued several items over the last couple of years or so and some of them are linked also to the international stamp exhibition held in Boston (the one in America not the original in Lincolnshire) from 23 to 30 May.
The first item in this sequence was a single stamp issued on 5 September 2024 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the 1st Continental Congress - note it features only 12 stars in the left hand border because of the non-attendance of Georgia
A se-tenant pair of stamps was released on 14 August 2025 celebrating the midnight ride of Paul Revere from Boston’s Old North church to warn nearby colonialist Minutemen of the approach of British armed forces prior to the battles of Bunker Hill and Lexington Concord. This issue ofcourse ties in very nicely with the 2026 Boston philatelic exhibition.
A sheetlet of 25 stamps depicting portraits of the great and the good of the American revolutionary cause made sure that those featured were drawn from diverse racial backgrounds and it was issued on 10 April 2026. The Declaration of Independence forms the background of the sheet.
Hence the Thirteen colonies formed the first secessionist state in the history of the British Empire. Unfortunately of course there were no postage stamps around then to enable us to have a contemporary philatelic representative item of the Thirteen Colonies in our Empire and Commonwealth collections although if we were prepared to, for once, add a fiscal stamp to our collection then (of course we would also need to be able to afford such an item) we could add an example of the tax stamp which was produced by the British in conjunction with the taxes they introduced and which so annoyed the American colonialists.
In fact the British repealed the Stamp Act in 1766 which withdrew certain taxations and the US Post Office commemorated in 2016 the 250th anniversary of this first success in the colonists’ attempts to assert themselves with a single stamp sold only in sheetlets of 10 which rather usefully depicted the wretched tax stamp in the top left corner - so it is possible to have a philatelic example of the troublesome stamp albeit a reproduction.
Since then we have seen various secessions including
British Somaliland - now called
Somaliland - which seceded from
Somalia, Bangladesh which seceded from
Pakistan,
Singapore which seceded from
Malaysia,
South Sudan which seceded from
Sudan,
Biafra which (ultimately unsuccessfully) seceded from
Nigeria,
Anguilla which seceded from
St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla and possibly in the future,
Bougainville from
Papua New Guinea,
Scotland from the
United Kingdom and now, apparently,
Alberta from
Canada.
Alberta is to hold a referendum on 19 October asking its citizens if they would prefer the province to remain part of Canada or if they wish to proceed to a second binding vote which would establish Alberta as an independent state separate from the Dominion of Canada. There is a feeling in a large minority of the population of Alberta that Canada gets more out of Alberta than Alberta gets out of Canada.
Alberta’s first European visitor was the Frenchman Pierre La Vérendrye who arrived in 1730 but the first Briton was the fur trader, Anthony Henday who arrived around 1754. The fur trade played an important part in the territory’s early history and Alberta became part of the North west Territories of Canada in 1870 and Canada’s government saw its role as a great farming area. Eventually Alberta became a province of the Dominion in 1905 and in the early part of the twentieth century the first discoveries of oil and gas were made in Alberta. A Canadian stamp of 1950 depicts the oil wells of Alberta and another issued in 1955 to commemorate the golden anniversary of Alberta becoming a province depicted local farmers in the foreground and oil wells in the background.
More issues over the years have depicted themes relevant to Alberta - the provincial arms and flower (the wild rose), issued 1964, the provincial flag (1979), 75th anniversary of Alberta as a province (1980), Centenary of the University of Alberta (2008), Centenary of Alberta as a province of Canada (2008), Jasper National Park, centenary of Alberta Law Society 2007, Centenary of the Calgary Stampede (2012), the Centenary of Calgary (1975), Club Carousel, Calgary (2025), Alberta Folksong (1993) and a number of others.
Therefore, if ever there is to be an independent Alberta issuing its own postage stamps then there are a number of forerunner philatelic depictions of the territory to serve as a first chapter of any future collection of the stamps of Alberta.
