The fact that numerous individuals were sold by their own families or by rival political factions is in itself a likely explanation as to why these returning Africans did not wish to, or could not, be reinstated in their native villages.  
The most well-known example of this practice is that of the mother of King Guêzo, who was sold by Adandozan (Verger, 1953; Hazoumé, 1937, p. 31). Her story is similar to the one told by Hilário Bandeira, a resident of Lomé, to his nephew Augusto Bandeira in 1996, about his ancestors:  
The fact is that our grandfather, who came back from Brazil with the surname Bandeira, was not Brazilian. You heard right. He was not Brazilian. We come from Savalou. We are Mahis. His village was Mokpa. You know very well that sometimes there are disputes in families. If someone tries to see things from a more enlightened perspective, this can result in them being pushed away. Why? Because of inheritance. If he's savvy, he might take everything from those who don't understand anything, or understand very little. These individuals are therefore eliminated. This was what happened to our ancestor.  
Having been sold or simply given to the slave traders - and thus already excluded from the society to which they were returning - these people who had left as enslaved people came back completely alienated from the social structure of their places of origin. They were different from the others: they dressed like white people, ate with cutlery and said they were Muslim or, in the majority of cases, Catholic. They were bricklayers, joiners, carpenters, tailors, foremen and commercial house managers, among other kinds of workers, and, although very often illiterate, they considered themselves to be on the right side of progress and modernity, in comparison to a society that they perceived primarily as primitive and wild. This society, in turn, continued to see them as enslaved people, in spite of their 'white ways'.