"Many actually believed that by capturing and Christianizing the African "heathens" they were saving their souls . . . ."

For the most part, slave-traders neither 'captured' slaves nor cared much about the condition of their captives' souls. It was a business, a rotten business, and one that enriched Europeans, Africans and Arabs. The anti-slavery sentiment that fortified the abolitionist movement was indeed something new under the sun.