James Bradley (former slave)
James Bradley (c. 1810 – after 1837) was an African slave in the United States who purchased his freedom and became an anti-slavery activist in Ohio.
As the result of Bradley's moving speech, students rallied to organize educational opportunities for blacks and sought to integrate with the community.
The Board of Trustees of the Seminary then shut down anti-slavery activity, which resulted in at least forty people, known as the Lane Rebels, leaving as a group.
Oberlin, Ohio, was the beneficiary; it became a racially diverse community and a center for anti-slavery efforts.
He studied for a year in an affiliated preparatory school of Oberlin College, the Sheffield Manual Labor Institute.
Bradley wrote an autobiographical statement that provides much of information that is known about his time of slavery and escape.
[1] According to Bradley, he lived in Guinea, a region of west Africa,[2] when he was captured as a two- or three-year-old child.
When he was nine years old, he was hit so hard that he was knocked unconscious for a time and his owner thought he had killed him.
In addition, the Bradley children made threatening gestures at times with knives and axes.
[3]: 108 [4] One of the lessons that he learned as an enslaved person was to always deny any interest in desiring freedom, because he knew it would result in rough treatment.
In this way I worked for five years; at the end of which time, after taking out my losses, I found that I had earned one hundred and sixty dollars.
I now bought my time for eighteen months longer, and went two hundred and fifty miles west, nearly into Texas, where I could make more money.
[3]: 110 [6] Lyman Beecher, the president of Lane, had instructed students at the seminary to be careful in the way that they interacted with black people.
Beecher did not understand it was not enough to model careful behavior;[19]: 94–95 he thought that Bradley did not come to the event because he was timid.
In both, he attacks the American Colonization Society and its intended strategy to send free blacks to Africa.
[22] The debate represented the views of the abolitionists who were against slavery and believed in emancipation against others who thought that slaves should be sent to a colony in Africa.
[23] Bradley, who supported abolition of slavery,[10] participated in the debates, and he was the only black person to speak.
[13] Bradley's classmate, Henry B. Stanton (future husband of Elizabeth Cady Stanton), remarked that Bradley had thoroughly, intelligently, and thoughtfully addressed all the issues that are raised against immediate emancipation, such as "it would be unsafe to the community" or that "the condition of the emancipated negroes would be worse than it now is — that they are incompetent to provide for themselves — that they would become paupers and vagrants, and would rather steal than work for wages.
Both abolitionists and those who argued for colonization listened intently to the discussion, and a number of times the entire audience would respond with laughter.
[24] Some students formed an anti-slavery group, organized their efforts to establish a library, conducted Bible classes, and opened free schools in black neighborhoods.
[24] Weld and the Lane Rebels integrated themselves within the black community, by renting rooms from boarding houses, attending weddings and funerals, and going to Prayer Meetings.
[27] Local leaders and most of the trustees had Southern clients, and were concerned that their businesses would be affected as the result of the students' efforts.
The Board of Trustees put a stop to any anti-slavery efforts, condemned the debates, and issued a gag order against discussion of slavery.
They went to Oberlin College, making that school and town racially diverse[10][22] and a center for leadership of the abolitionist movement.
[7] He may be the "negro, late of Sheffield College", who helped in the liberation of fourteen slaves from one plantation.
[30]: 60–61 Bradley's speech was an example of the power of including people who are directly involved in a situation to speak to their issues and desires.
[13][14] The statue, made by George Danhires, shows Bradley sitting on a riverfront bench, facing north across the Ohio River to Cincinnati, while reading a book.
[32] Bradley appears as a character in the 2019 movie Sons & Daughters of Thunder, about the Lane Debates,[33] based on a play by Earlene Hawley and Curtis Heeter.
