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.

Bradley was two or three years old when he was enslaved and transported to the United States, where he was purchased by a Mr. Bradley of Pendleton County, Kentucky; he subsequently moved with the Bradley family to the Arkansas Territory. While working days as a slave, Bradley began to work for himself through the night. In 1833, after eight years, he purchased his freedom and went to Cincinnati in the free state of Ohio.

Bradley associated himself with Lane Seminary and played a central role in the Lane Debates on Slavery in 1834. 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. Bradley moved to Oberlin with the other Rebels. 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. Nothing is known of his life after 1837. There is no known image of or physical description of him.^[1]