These journeys back to Africa involved different phases, motives and circumstances, and were commonly called returns, although for some it was their first trip to mainland Africa. Taking into account the symbolic representation of the African destinations, we could indeed consider the journey to be a return even for those of the descendants born in the Americas - a return to the homeland of their ancestors. In the case of Brazil, the majority of those making the journey had been born in Africa and almost always came from regions close to their destinations. Historian Mariza de Carvalho Soares works with the term "group of origin" to refer to the specifics of the organizational forms of African communities in Brazil (De Carvalho Soares, 2000; 2004, pp. 303-331).  
The history of these returns, and that of the groups involved in them, is documented in various records from that period, including port records, passports, reports of missionaries and travellers and notices in periodicals that published the departures of freedpersons. Evidence is currently emerging with regard to the communities that were forming on the African continent - communities that formed a sense of identity through their experiences of the Atlantic and the diaspora in the New World. The freedpersons who returned to Africa from Brazil in the nineteenth century built identities drawing upon elements of Brazilian culture: languages, first names and surnames, habits, religions and even celebrations.