# The issue of return to Africa  
While the majority of the emancipated Masombika had no prospects other than to remain settled on the island, some endeavoured to return to the continental mainland. In Morondava, a western port controlled by representatives of the Antananarivo, the Makoa had been liberated by the royal degree of 1877. In the vicinity of the garrison town, they established a small community of freemen, living mainly from the land and including the early converts of the Norwegian Lutheran mission in western Madagascar (Boyer-Rossol, 2013). Missionary Jacobsen described Samuel, one of the first Makoa evangelists in Morondava, in the following terms: 'For him, as for other Makoa, the ache for Africa stemmed from deep within the heart and much could be written about their attempts to return to their native land' (Aas, 1919). The Makoa in Morondava were born in the hinterland to the west of Mozambique, in Makhuwa country (Last, 1895). During the 1880s, some endeavoured to return to this homeland by enlisting the support of the Norwegian Mission, wrote missionary Aas:  
A group of approximately 50 Christian Makoa came numerous times to the Mission to ask for permission to leave with a missionary for the highlands of Mozambique. I had a hard time trying to calm them down; they wanted to build a boat and leave. They were only placated when I promised to bring the matter up with the mother church back home [in Norway], and they said they would accept the will of God (Aas, 1923).