The American Revolution is usually seen as the same thing as the American Revolutionary War, which began in 1775 with the Battle of Lexington and ended in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris. This popular misunderstanding has led to forgetting the real revolution, the change in the way countries are governed and the ideas that lead to it. With the end of the French and Indian Wars, World War I, the British found themselves with a huge national debt. The only reason they won the war was that their treasure lasted longer than the French. As part of the peace agreement, the French offered to cede all their possessions in America to the English. These new acquisitions posed a problem for the British parliament because they now had to prevent settlers from the British colonies from entering the new land for fear of Indians attacking them. Therefore, to defend the colonists from the Indians (and vice versa) the British parliament decided that the colonists would pay a small tax (compared to that paid in England) to pay less than half of the money needed for the army that would remain permanently in service. stationed in the Americas, so parliament introduced the Sugar Act. The Sugar Act was something that effectively reduced the tax on molasses by eliminating the incentive for smuggling and thus increasing the amount of people willing to pay the taxes. This reduction, while a good idea, didn't make much money. Then, the British parliament passed the Stamp Act. The parliament assumed that since the British people had been living with the tax for about 70 years and there had been no riots in Britain, the colonists would accept it. Unfortunately they were wrong. The colonists were angry about the new tax because it covered so many things and they didn't get any representation on the matter. Americans saw the new tax as a way to enslave them, to deprive them of the very reason that could have guaranteed freedom to the colonies. The Americans began to think that they were the last bastion of English rights because the English had "obviously" lost them. So Americans began to complain about taxes to King George III and some secret organizations such as the Sons of Liberty, Americans even boycotted British goods.