Slavery and Religion

I was hoping that somebody would look into the issue of religion and slavery.

With the release of the movie "Amazing Grace", a lot of religious people have been declaring how it was religion that freed the slaves - as if the South before the Civil War was a bastion of free-thought and atheist thinking (or, at least, was overrun by some anti-Christian philosophy).

In fact, the defenders of slavery used the Bible to defend their institution - which they could easily do, since scripture contained so many references to God not only allowing, but in some cases commanding, the owning of slaves.

It was almost like the Bible was written by a bunch of primitive tribesmen, and not some benevolent being with perfect moral knowledge. Otherwise, how would he have gotten the part about slavery so wrong?

Anyway, Kelly at the Rational Response Squad has provided at least some of the evidence against the theist attempt to rewrite history in Dinesh D'Souza Spreads Dishonest Propaganda…Again.

I would like to see some independent verification of the authenticity of these quotes - somebody in the know who can verity their authenticity. But the first step - the step of collecting some of this information, has at least been done.