James Augustine Healy (April 6, 1830 – August 5, 1900) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He was the first known African American to serve as a Catholic priest or bishop. With his predominantly European ancestry, Healy passed for a white man and identified as such. Born an enslaved person into the Healy family of Georgia, James Healy was the son of a White plantation owner and a mixed-race enslaved woman. He was ordained a priest in 1854 and served as bishop of the Diocese of Portland in Maine and New Hampshire from 1875 until his death in 1900. Biography Early life Family James Healy was born in Jones County, Georgia, on April 6, 1830. His father, Michael Morris Healy (1796–1850), was a native of County Roscommon, Ireland who became a wealthy cotton planter after settling in Georgia. Healy owned more than 1,500 acres of land near the Ocmulgee River as well as 49 to 60 enslaved people. James's mother was a mixed-race enslaved woman named Mary Eliza (c. 1813–1850), whom Michael had purchased for $3,700 along with her family. He took Mary Eliza as his common-law wife in 1829. James was the eldest of their ten children. His siblings were: Hugh Clark Healy (1832–1853) Patrick Francis Healy (1834–1910), the first African American Jesuit and president of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Alexander Sherwood Healy (1836–1875), a priest and rector of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston Martha Ann Healy (1838–1920) Michael Augustine Healy (1839–1904), a captain in the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service and the first African American to command a ship of the U.S. government Eugene Healy (1842), who died in infancy Amanda Josephine Healy (1845–1879), a member of the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph Eliza Dunamore Healy (1846–1919), a member of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal and the first African American abbess Eugene Healy (1849–1914) In his will, Michael Healy referred to his wife as "my trusty woman, Eliza, mother of my...children." Due to the partus sequitur ventrem principle in slave law, children inherited the legal status of their mothers; therefore, the Healy children were born into slavery. Michael was unable to directly free his wife and children as manumission required an act of the Georgia General Assembly in exceptional circumstances. Before their deaths a few months apart in 1850, Michael and Eliza Healy had planned to relocate with their youngest children