In the spring of 1905, when they were supposed to be preparing for the rains, the slaves of Banamba began to leave their masters. Most were persuaded to remain where they were for one more year, but in the spring of 1906 the exodus began again. For the next four or five years, all across the Sudan, groups of slaves trekked slowly and patiently across the dry savanna lands, braving hunger and deprivation to look for earlier homes. Often villages they sought no longer existed. Sometimes, those enslaved when young had forgotten their clans and even their villages. Many ended up in other places, but hundreds of thousands went home and began the difficult task of reconstructing destroyed communities. The effect of the exodus was the destruction of slavery as a labor system in much of the area covered by this study.

There were already tensions within slave systems, especially within those that most systematically exploited slave labor. Slave flight increased as the period of conquest drew to a close. Population growth in Wasulu and other areas that had been depopulated took place from the moment of French conquest and in spite of risks involved in the return.