The heathen label justified enslavement of Africans as soulless godless people

Evidence

The label “heathen” did not apply just to Native Americans, but to people who did not worship the one true God, as determined by Anglo-Saxon Protestants. In the case of Africans, Americans justified their enslavement based on their Christian beliefs that Africans were godless heathens with no souls. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 218