o North America with the British Army during the War of 1812, settled in Nova Scotia, and moved to Georgia in 1818 (Foley, 1969: 4. Originally regarded with hostility by his neighbors because he was Irish and Catholic, Michael Healy thrived and became a successful planter. By 1831, he owned sixteen hundred acres of land and seventeen slaves; by 1833, his land holdings had doubled.
In 1829, Healy entered into married life with a slave woman, Mary Eliza Smith, who had been born on a neighboring plantation in 1813. Later, many legends arose about her background, some holding that her ancestry traced back to refugees from a late eighteenth century slave revolt on the Caribbean island of Santo Domingo (Foley, 1969: 7). In fact, her background was not so exotic, but it is worth noting that she was related to Ellen Smith Craft, wife of abolitionist William Craft (Logan and Winston, 1982: 302).
Racial mixing, "miscegenation," was extremely widespread in the plantation South, and it was a very severe social "problem" in a slave society (Bennett, 1969: 242ff). White plantation women in particular were frequently outraged when their husbands took up with attractive slave women. However, the relationship between Michael Healy and "his trusty woman Eliza" (Bennett, 1969: 253) had all the characteristics of a marriage, though it may originally have been an unconsecrated and unofficial "common law" relationship. Marriage between a white man and a black slave woman was technically illegal under Georgia law (Foley, 1969: 7). Every indication we have, however, is that Michael Healy regarded Eliza as his wife. He kept a daguerrotype (an early type of photograph) of her, but it probably has not survived; in any case, no reproduction of it is available.
Michael and Eliza had ten children. James Augustine was their oldest son. Michael must have been a devout Catholic, and the couple must both have been remarkable peopl...