Why did the US gain its independence from Great Britain?

Answer 1

Functional Perspective

From a purely functional perspective, the United States gained independence because the Rebel Colonies and their allies effectively pushed Britain into the position where they were forced to concede independence to the colonies or risk losing more desirable territories in the Caribbean or India.

Ideological Perspective

From an ideological perspective, it has to do with political disagreements between the elite among the Colonists and attempts by the British to regulate their behavior. The citizens of the Thirteen Colonies, although British in many respects had begun to create a new and unique identity. They had a desire for land and slaves that was unconnected with their mother country. There was also the development of a more relaxed culture where the formalities that defined the interactions between British nobility were seen as overdone. Simplicity and practicality became dominant modes of thought. In many aspects such as war, trade, and law, much of authoritative power for these decisions came from a country far beyond the horizon. The British in Europe had no real idea about the productivity of America and the incredible proliferation of smuggling ships to get the most basic goods. Nor were they terribly aware of the brutal European-Native Conflicts all along the Appalachian Mountains. As to be expected from a far-off power, the British responses to discovering the extent of the smuggling and amount of violence on the Western frontier led to the British harshly curbing both. The effects of these restrictions affected much of the American elite, but few commoners save those isolated settlers in the far West.

As a result, many of the American elite who wished to take direct control of the future of their lands had to couch their move for dominance in American Affairs in language that could motivate the majority of British colonists to forsake their loyalty to the only sovereign they had ever known. They chose the taxes imposed on the American colonies after the Seven Years War (much of which was fought to protect American lives and territory). Even though these taxes were the lightest in the entire British Empire, the imposition of these new taxes was enough to begin a general trend to towards desiring American independence. Liberty, which today is construed politically (freedom of speech et al.), was originally purely economic and was the focus of this revolt. Interestingly, most of the major American cities south of Providence (New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, etc.) were Loyalist bastions and it was the countryside that responded most fiercely to this Propaganda, likely due to the large relative effect that the taxes would have on them. Contrary to what is often taught, Americans did not dedicate themselves to fighting for any of the major rights in the Bill of Rights prior to the Revolution and many of those rights are a direct result of either the circumstances of the war (Amendment 3 - No Quartering of Soldiers) or were lifted from State Constitutions that existed in the colonial period (Amendment 8 - No Torture).