The Master's Children

They were their father's children. Under Georgia law, they were also his slaves.

In antebellum Georgia, Irish immigrant Michael Morris Healy and Mary Eliza, the enslaved woman he considered his wife, made a daring decision: send their children north before the South could determine their fate.

What followed was extraordinary.

One son became a Catholic bishop. Another became president of Georgetown University. Another commanded U.S. government vessels through the Arctic. Others became priests, nuns, a mother superior, a wife and mother-each building a life that would have been nearly unimaginable from the plantation where they were born.

Yet the Healy story is not a simple tale of triumph. Michael built his wealth through slavery even as he fought to protect his own children from its consequences, creating a family story filled with love, ambition, faith, contradiction, heartbreak, and courage.

The Master's Children tells the remarkable true story of a Georgia family that crossed the boundaries of race, law, religion, and social convention-and whose children went on to make American history.