Cato Perkins

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. 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 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 new life in Sierra Leone was not what the group had expected and Perkins petitioned the SLC to improve Freetown; 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 and later on, other Nova Scotian settler preachers established churches in the Liberated African villages.

Perkins died in Sierra Leone in 1805, although some sources state that he lived until 1820; his churches are the remnant of Huntingdon's Connexion church worldwide.