autonomous vs independent

autonomous

adj
  • Self-governing. Intelligent, sentient, self-aware, thinking, feeling, governing independently. 

  • Acting on one's own or independently; of a child, acting without being governed by parental or guardian rules. 

  • Used with no subject, indicating an unknown or unspecified agent; used in similar situations as the passive in English (the difference being that the theme in the English passive construction is the subject, while in the Celtic autonomous construction the theme is the object and there is no subject). 

independent

adj
  • Not subject to bias or influence; self-directing. 

  • Not dependent; not contingent or depending on something else; free. 

  • Not affiliated with any political party. 

  • Separate from; exclusive; irrespective. 

  • Providing a comfortable livelihood. 

noun
  • A team not affiliated with any league or conference. 

  • A neutral or uncommitted person. 

  • A candidate or voter not affiliated with any political party, a freethinker, free of a party platform. 

  • A small, privately owned business. 

How often have the words autonomous and independent occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )