Mel Fisher Maritime Museum

It is hard to imagine that babies were caught in the slave trade, but one infant arrived on the Wildfire. Sadly, based on a report in the Key Of The Gulf newspaper, it appears that this baby did not survive its ordeal: "Among the Wildfire's cargo there is a young mother, with a babe about six weeks old. She soon became an object of interest among visitors, and in a very short time both mother and child were suitably and comfortably clad. The babe soon sickened and died -- and as we saw the mother bending and weeping, and kissing its inanimate form -- wailing in plaintive song, and responded to by numerous mourners around the corpse -- we felt that love was beyond all conditions of pride or place, and that many might rejoice and be flattered in their self-love, if they would be missed as much as the dead babe was by its mother. It was laid in a handsome coffin, and a procession of seventeen went with it to its last abode. Low chauntings and loud wails of grief would break forth, and when at last the spot was reached, they became as silent as the narrow house which would contain all the heart prized so much. The little coffin was placed in the grave, each threw in its handful of earth, and amid the deepest sorrow they returned in silence back.”