THE Independence of the United States of America, formally held on the day July 4, 1776, was one of the main events of the Modern Age and a “watershed” in the history of the American continent. That's because the United States was the first nation of settlers in the Americas to break away from its metropolis, the England. In addition, it was also in the USA that the first experience of a presidential and federative republican regime, inspired by the liberalism.
End of the Seven Years War
To fully understand why the USA independence occurred in the mid-1770s, it is necessary to understand the context of the time.
From 1756 to 1763, there was the call Seven Years War, a conflict that involved the main kingdoms of Europe, including France and Great Britain. As these two nations had colonies in North America, the conflict extended there as well. The war came to an end with Great Britain as one of the victors. However, the costs caused by the war were extremely high and the British ended up in debt.
A large part of the debt came to be collected from the American colonists, who, by the way, had already helped the British during the war. This charge was institutionalized in the so-called "lawsprohibitive”. It was from the settlers' reaction to these laws that Independence took place.
Prohibitive Laws and the Tea Issue in Boston
Prohibitive laws were fiscal restrictions, that is, imposition of limitations on commercial relations in colonial territory. One of those laws was the Stamp Law, enacted in 1765, which aimed to levy a tax on all products circulating in the colonies. The charge was made through the mandatory printing of the real seal on the goods. In addition to the Stamp Law, others were imposed with the same objective: the Sugar Law, a currency law, a law ofquartering and the tea tax law.
The latter, the Tea Tax Act, provoked a revolt that would become a symbol of independence. The tea law devalued the herb produced in the USA so that the colonists were forced to buy the tea herb produced by the USA. West India Company and traded by the British. In the year 1770, there was the murder, by the English guard, of five individuals who protested against this law in the city of Boston.
In December 1773, Boston settlers disguised themselves as Indians, infiltrated one of the West India Company ships, and threw the sacks of grass into the sea. This gesture was known as Boston Tea Party and it gave rise to one of the strongest conservative political movements in the United States.
Philadelphia Congress and the Declaration of Independence
Reactions against the English crown began to get more and more intense after 1773. These reactions resulted in the formation, in 1774, of the CongressContinental, or Philadelphia Congress, formed by delegates from the Thirteen Colonies. It was the representatives of this Congress who opted for a break with the English crown, on June 2, 1776.
This decision resulted in the Declaration of independence, two days later, on the 4th of July, inspired by the Enlightenment and liberal thought at the end of the 18th century. As historian Leandro Karnal points out, the content of the Declaration of Independence “it is typical of this “illustrated thought”, present in the colonies in the 18th century. In many ways it resembles Paine's pamphlet, mixing elements of rational thought with religious arguments.”. (KARNAL, Leandro. US History: From Origins to the 21st Century. São Paulo: Context, 2015. P. 86).
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