Cato Perkins was an enslaved African-American man from

Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atla ...

, who became a missionary to

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...

. Cato was enslaved by John Perkins. 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 The siege of Charleston was a major engagement and major British victory in the American Revolutionary War, fought in the environs of Charles Town (today Charleston), the capital of South Carolina, between March 29 and May 12, 1780. The British ...

, and he joined

General Clinton General Sir Henry Clinton, KB (16 April 1730 – 23 December 1795) was a British Army officer and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1772 and 1795. He is best known for his service as a general during the American War of Indepe ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

and worked as a carpenter there. Perkins was evacuated to

Birchtown, Nova Scotia Birchtown is a community and National Historic Site in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located near Shelburne in the Municipal District of Shelburne County. Founded in 1783, the village was the largest settlement of Black Loyalists and ...

, in 1783, and he is listed in the '' Book of Negroes''. Upon arriving in

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

, he was converted by

John Marrant John Marrant (June 15, 1755 – April 15, 1791) was an American Methodist preacher and missionary and one of the first black preachers in North America. Born free in New York City, he moved as a child with his family to Charleston, South Carolina. ...

of the

Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion is a small society of evangelical churches, founded in 1783 by Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, as a result of the Evangelical Revival. For many years it was strongly associated with the Calvinist ...

, which was a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

splinter group. Perkins was ordained into the church and later took over the running of it. Perkins migrated to Sierra Leone, where he led a strike of carpenters against the

Sierra Leone Company The Sierra Leone Company was the corporate body involved in founding the Freetown, second British colony in Africa on 11 March 1792 through the resettlement of Black Loyalists who had initially been settled in Nova Scotia (the Nova Scotian Settler ...

. The new life in Sierra Leone was not what the group had expected and Perkins petitioned the SLC to improve Freetown;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. By 1800, inflated price-fixing was leading to food riots and Perkins negotiated between the rioters and the council. Perkins established the first Huntingdon's Connexion church, with William Ash and John Ellis ''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 The Nova Scotian Settlers, or Sierra Leone Settlers (also known as the Nova Scotians or more commonly as the Settlers), were Black Britons or Black Canadians who founded the settlement of Freetown, Sierra Leone Colony and Protectorate, Sierra Le ...

preachers established churches in the Liberated African villages. Perkins died in Sierra Leone in 1805, although some sources state that he lived until 1820; Black Loyalists Digital Collections website, ''Cato Perkins''
/ref> his churches are the remnant of Huntingdon's Connexion church worldwide.

References

Sources

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External links

Sierra Leone website
''Two Voyages to Sierra Leone, During the Years 1791-2-3'', by Anna Maria Falconbridge {{DEFAULTSORT:Perkins, Cato American rebel slaves American Methodist missionaries African-American Methodist clergy American Methodist clergy Black Loyalists Methodist missionaries in Sierra Leone Nova Scotian Settlers Sierra Leone Creole people 1805 deaths Year of birth unknown 18th-century American slaves African-American missionaries People enslaved in South Carolina