In September, 1833, Justin Perkins set sail for Persia as a missionary for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, his specific appointment being for the remaining members of the Assyrian Church of the East in northwestern Persia.

Perkins' presence set the tone for the American presence in Iran during the second half of the 19th century when the missionary-led American presence took responsibility for a broad network of primary and secondary schools in northwest Iran that served to bring literacy among the indigenous Christian Aramaic speakers - members of the Assyrian Church of the East.

Perkins was not only a trained missionary, but he was also an ethnically aware watercolorist whose drawings of men, women and children belonging to the various ethnic groups of northwest Iran survive in his books as well as in unpublished drawings. These provide a colorful presentation of ethnic costumes, colors and fabrics available to local populations during the mid-19th century.

He described his experiences in A Residence of Eight Years in Persia among the Nestorian Christians with Notices of the Muhammedans (1841), and Missionary Life in Persia (1861).