{{Short description|African-American slave and missionary}} '''Cato Perkins''' was an enslaved African-American man from Charleston, South Carolina, who became a missionary to Sierra Leone.
Cato was enslaved by John Perkins.<ref name=BL>[https://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/untoldlives/page/41/ British Library website, ''The Lives and Letters of the Black Loyalists - Part 3 Cato Perkins and Nathaniel Snowball'']</ref> Cato Perkins self-emancipated by joining the British during the Siege of Charleston, and he joined General Clinton in New York and worked as a carpenter there. Perkins was evacuated to Birchtown, Nova Scotia, in 1783, and he is listed in the ''Book of Negroes''. Upon arriving in Nova Scotia, he was converted by John Marrant of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, which was a Methodist splinter group. Perkins was ordained into the church<ref>[https://open.upress.virginia.edu/read/black-cosmopolitans/section/bdffa97e-6ac8-41b9-ac32-6d9d352b9bc1 University of Virginia website, ''John Morrant, From Methodism to Freemasonry'']</ref> and later took over the running of it.<ref>[https://equianosworld.org/associates-religious.php?id=7 Equiano’s World website, ‘’Associates’’]</ref>
Perkins migrated to Sierra Leone, where he led a strike of carpenters against the Sierra Leone Company. The new life in Sierra Leone was not what the group had expected and Perkins petitioned the SLC to improve Freetown;<ref name=BL /><ref name=OUP>[https://academic.oup.com/cornell-scholarship-online/book/30815/chapter/262429667 Oxford University Press website, ''No Useless Mouth: Waging War and Fighting Hunger in the American Revolution; Chapter 8, Black Loyalist Hunger Prevention in Sierra Leone'' (2019)]</ref> In 1793 Perkins travelled with Isaac Anderson to London to make their petition heard.<ref>[https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1673281662/ William and Mary College website, ''Perceptions, Promises, And Power: Anna Maria Falconbridge, The Sierra Leone Company, And The Development Of Freetown, 1791-1802'', by Jackson Wood (2022) ]</ref> By 1800, inflated price-fixing was leading to food riots and Perkins negotiated between the rioters and the council.<ref name=OUP />
Perkins established the first Huntingdon's Connexion church, with William Ash and John Ellis<ref name=BSO>[https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/bq/16-7_313.pdf ''Early Religious Influences in Sierra Leone''. by F.W. Butt-Thompson, published in the Baptist Quarterly 16.7 (July 1956), pages 313-322.]</ref> and later on, other Nova Scotian settler preachers established churches in the Liberated African villages.
Perkins died in Sierra Leone in 1805,<ref>[https://www.cofhconnexion.org.uk/images/pdfs/The-Elect-Lady.pdf Countess of Huntingdon Connexion website, ''The Elect Lady'', by Gilbert W. Kirby (1972)]</ref> although some sources state that he lived until 1820;<ref name=BSO /><ref>[https://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/205/301/ic/cdc/blackloyalists/people/religious/perkins.htm Black Loyalists Digital Collections website, ''Cato Perkins'']</ref> his churches are the remnant of Huntingdon's Connexion church worldwide.
== References == {{reflist}}
==Sources== *{{cite book|title=The Crown and the Turban: Muslims and West African Pluralism|author=Sanneh, L.O.|year=1997|publisher=Westview Press|isbn=9780813330594|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JpoX4KX7mvQC}} *{{cite book|title=Korle Meets the Sea : A Sociolinguistic History of Accra: A Sociolinguistic History of Accra|author=Director of Language Centre University of Ghana Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu Professor of Linguistics, L.|year=1997|publisher=Oxford University Press, USA|isbn=9780195345186|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_MtZuAn8Xb8C}} *{{cite book|title=Sierra Leone: Current Issues and Background|author=Sillinger, B.|year=2003|publisher=Nova Science|isbn=9781590336625|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6lFoADVf4pIC}} *{{cite book|title=Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution|author=Schama, S.|year=2006|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=9780060539160|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w6P8FSfh7GwC}} *{{cite book|title=Historical Dictionary of European Imperialism|author1=Olson, J.S.|author2=Shadle, R.|year=1991|publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=9780313262579|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uyqepNdgUWkC}} *{{cite book|title=Forgotten Heroes: Inspiring American Portraits From Our Leading Historians|author=Ware, S.|year=1999|publisher=Free Press|isbn=9780684868721|url=https://archive.org/details/forgottenheroesi00ware|url-access=registration}} *{{cite book|title=Odysseys Home: Mapping African-Canadian Literature|author=Clarke, G.E.|year=2002|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=9780802081919|url=https://archive.org/details/odysseyshomemapp00clar|url-access=registration}} *{{cite book|title=Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty|author=Pybus, C.|year=2007|publisher=Beacon Press|isbn=9780807055151|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=APefKHjVx9EC}} *{{cite web|url=http://www.blackloyalist.com/canadiandigitalcollection/people/religious/perkins.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080219111137/http://blackloyalist.com/canadiandigitalcollection/people/religious/perkins.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=19 February 2008|title=Cato Perkins|author=Tony Pace|publisher=blackloyalist.com|accessdate=16 January 2014}} *{{cite web|url=http://www.blackloyalist.com/canadiandigitalcollection/story/exodus/freetown.htm|title=Freetown|author=Tony Pace|publisher=blackloyalist.com|accessdate=16 January 2014|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130729041634/http://www.blackloyalist.com/canadiandigitalcollection/story/exodus/freetown.htm|archivedate=29 July 2013}} *{{cite book|title=Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty|author=Pybus, C.|year=2007|publisher=Beacon Press|isbn=9780807055151|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=APefKHjVx9EC}} *{{cite book|title=Americans in black Africa up to 1865|author1=Clendenen, C.C.|author2=Duignan, P.|year=1964|publisher=Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford University|url=https://archive.org/details/americansinblack0000clen|url-access=registration}} *{{cite book|title=The Sunday at Home|author=Religious Tract Society (Great Britain)|year=1880|issue=v. 27|publisher=Religious Tract Society|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vctMAAAAMAAJ}} *{{cite book|title=Sierra Leone in History and Tradition|author=Butt-Thompson, F.W.|year=1926|publisher=Witherby|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bwkwAAAAIAAJ}} *{{cite book|title=The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Quest|author=Forna, A.|year=2003|publisher=Grove Press|isbn=9780802140487|url=https://archive.org/details/devilthatdancedo00amin|url-access=registration}} *{{cite book|title=Race and Labour in Twentieth-century Britain|author=Lunn, K.|year=1985|publisher=Cass|isbn=9780714632384|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yz0g09DqGt4C}}
== External links == [http://www.sierra-leone.org/Books/Two%20Voyages%20to%20Sierra%20Leone%20during%20the%20years%201791-2-3.pdf Sierra Leone website] ''Two Voyages to Sierra Leone, During the Years 1791-2-3'', by Anna Maria Falconbridge
{{Black Loyalists}} {{Protestant missions to Africa}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Perkins, Cato}} Category:American rebel slaves Category:American Methodist missionaries Category:African-American Methodist clergy Category:18th-century American Methodist ministers Category:Black Loyalists in the American Revolution Category:Methodist missionaries in Sierra Leone Category:Nova Scotian Settlers Category:Sierra Leone Creole people Category:1805 deaths Category:Year of birth unknown Category:18th-century American slaves Category:African-American missionaries Category:People enslaved in South Carolina Category:18th-century African-American people Category:American missionaries in Sierra Leone