A Saint in the Slave Trade by Arnold Lunn St. Peter Claver, S.J. (1581-1654) was unable to abolish the slave trade, but he did what he could to mitigate its horrors, once the slaves arrived in the New World, by bringing them the consolations of religion and ministering to their bodily wants. He landed in Cartagena in 1610 and for forty years strove to alleviate their lot, with true apostolic fervor, declaring himself "the slave of the Negroes forever." Cartagena, which was founded by Pedro de Heredia in 1533, owed its great commercial importance to its superb harbour. It...