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The Healy family of Georgia became notable in U.S. history because of the siblings' high achievements in the second half of the nineteenth century, particularly within the Catholic Church. They were born in Jones County, Georgia, to Mary Eliza Smith, a mulatto slave, and her common-law husband, Michael Morris Healy, an Irish Catholic immigrant from County Roscommon, who became a wealthy cotton planter. Born into slavery because of their mother's status, the mixed-race children were prohibited from being educated in Georgia. They were majority European in ancestry, and Healy was determined to provide them with educations. He sent them to the North, as did many planters with mixed-race children. The sons attended a combination of Quaker and later Catholic schools in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. James, Patrick and Sherwood all did further studies at Saint-Sulpice Seminary in Paris, France, and the latter two earned doctorates there. The three daughters were educated at long-established Catholic convent schools in Montreal, Canada. Of the nine children who lived to adulthood, three of the sons became ordained Catholic priests and educators, while all three daughters became nuns. (One later left the order, married an Irish immigrant, and had a son). James Augustine Healy became the first American bishop of African descent, and Eliza Healy attained the rank of Mother Superior, the first person of African-American descent to reach this position. Michael Healy, the youngest boy, joined the United States Revenue Cutter Service, a predecessor of the U.S. Coast Guard. Today he is noted as the first person of African-American descent to command a federal ship. Three of the Healy children have been individually honored by the naming of various buildings, awards and a ship for them. The former site of the Healy family's plantation near Macon, Georgia is now called Healy Point. It includes the Healy Point Country Club.〔(Anne Marie Murphy, "Passing free: Black in the South, Irish in the North, the Healys Slipped the Bonds of Race in Civil War America" ), ''Boston College Magazine'', Summer 2003, accessed 9 Apr 2010〕 Born into slavery, the children were considered mulatto in the South, a census classification that recognized the range of degrees of mixed race. With three-quarter European ancestry, the children varied in features and complexions. All were baptized Catholic in the North and were accepted as white Irish Americans. Their stories have intrigued historians and sociologists because of the Healys' high achievements. They gained higher educations and most became prominent in the Catholic Church, they negotiated racial issues, and they created alliances with Catholic Church officials and its institutions. The Catholic Church representatives who mentored the young Healy men and women have also attracted interest. James M. O'Toole's ''Passing for White: Race, Religion, and the Healy Family, 1820-1920'' (2003) explores many of those issues. A. D. Powell's ''Passing for Who You Really Are'' (2005) takes issue with what she calls the distortion of the past by 20th-century activists, as she says they practice their own kind of "one-drop rule." She thinks it is inappropriate to claim as African American individuals such as the Healys, who historically identified as and were accepted as Irish American, although they acknowledged their multi-racial heritage.〔(A.D. Powell, XVIII. "When Are Irish-Americans Not Good Enough to Be Irish-American? Racial Kidnapping and the Healy Family", in ''Passing for What You Really Are: Essays in Support of Multiracial Whiteness'' ), Palm Coast, Florida: Backintyme, 2005, accessed 8 February 2011〕 Since the late 20th century, several of the Healys have been noted and celebrated as the "first African Americans" to achieve certain positions. ==Family history== The immigrant ancestor, Michael Morris Healy, was born on September 20, 1796, in the village of Athlone in County Roscommon. He emigrated to the United States, possibly by way of Canada, arriving in 1818. Through good fortune in a Georgia land lottery and later acquisitions, he eventually acquired of good "bottomland" near the Ocmulgee River in Jones County, across from the market town of Macon. He became one of the more prominent and successful planters in an area known for cotton, and owned 49 slaves for his labor-intensive enterprise.〔 Among these was a 16-year-old girl named Mary Eliza (whose surname has been recorded both as Smith and Clark), whom he took as his common-law wife in 1829, when he was age 33.〔(Eileen A. Sullivan, "Review: Look away, Dixieland", of David T. Gleeson, ''The Irish in the South 1815 - 1877'' ), ''Irish Literary Supplement'', 22 September 2002, carried on Highbeam Research, accessed 7 February 2011〕 His wife, Mary Eliza Smith/Clark, has been described in various accounts as "slave" and "former slave", and as mulatto and African American (which includes mixed-race). In the South, persons of visible or known African racial heritage were considered to be "black," because of the association with slavery as a racial caste. By that criterion, Mary Eliza and all the Healy children were black, although the children were three-quarters European or more in ancestry. The term "mulatto" was also in use, which recognized mixed race. In Louisiana, free people of color formed a third class, whose descendants are called Louisiana creoles. These free mixed-race people gained education and property, sometimes as a result of settlements on women and children in the system of ''plaçage''.〔(INTERRACIAL VOICE - Guest Editorial )〕 The union of Michael Morris and Mary Eliza Healy was unusual for being relatively formalized, although unions were common between white men and mixed-race or black women. He was not the only wealthy white man to take an African-American wife and to provide for the education of their children. For example, shortly before the start of the American Civil War, nearly all the 200 young men at Wilberforce College in southern Ohio, established by white and black Ohio Methodist leaders for the education of blacks, were mixed-race sons of wealthy white planters from the South.〔(Horace Talbert, ''The Sons of Allen: Together with a Sketch of the Rise and Progress of Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, Ohio'', 1906 ), p. 273, ''Documenting the South'', 2000, University of North Carolina, accessed 25 Jul 2008〕 At the time, Georgia law (and that of most other states) prohibited interracial marriage.〔 The couple lived together as man and wife from 1829 until their deaths a few months apart in 1850. During that time they had ten children, nine of whom survived to adulthood.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Healy family」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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