The Crisis of the British Empire Starting in 1754, two years later, the French and Indian War spawned what is known as the Seven Years' War in Europe. In an attempt to gain control over the Ohio River fur trade, the French North American colonies, in alliance with the American Indians, attacked British troops along the western frontier. The war ended in 1763, forcing France and Spain to cede their regions of North America (namely Canada and Florida) to the British Empire. This acquisition and the subsequent withdrawal of Spanish troops weakened the defense of fugitive slaves in refugee camps stationed in Florida's Bayous. By 1768, the British Parliament had established multiple taxes on trade in the North American colonies and restrictions on expansion west of the Appalachian Mountains. Discontent in the colonies reached its peak in 1770, when five people were killed by British troops during the Boston Massacre, one of whom was a black dockworker named Crispus Attucks. The Tea Act of 1773, which involved the introduction of the British East India Company as a tea monopoly in British North America, fomented undercurrents of revolution among the colonists. The Declaration of Independence and African Americans The revolutionary ideology of the patriots that: “all men are created equal. . . that among these [rights] are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” belied the real conditions of the slave population. In turn, this fueled hope among African American slaves that they too could claim equality. In 1690, he promulgated the...... half of the document......ye New York - began a gradual process of abolition. An estimated 100,000 slaves escaped their Southern masters in this period, some coming ashore from America with the English and others moving to the North. The amount of autonomy African Americans gained in the postwar North allowed them to pursue skilled trades or form isolated communities in the South. The promising Revolutionary Chesapeake contained the largest number of free African Americans, but Northern states trended toward processes of emancipation and abolition during the Revolutionary era. By comparison, the number of free African Americans living in the Southern states remained low. Cities were the primary destination for newly freed slaves and their families. However, the transition to independence was often hampered by a lack of economic resources and stability.