There were also places associated with the refuge of freed captives and runaway slaves; these included settlements associated with European missionaries such as Rabai and Freretown

There were four principal caravan routes; the first started from the port town Mombasa and traveled inland into Mariakani, Kibwezi, Nzaui, and Kitui before curving westwards into Machakos.

This happened because the overland route had not yet been banned at the time and also because the coast north of Lamu was not within the Sultanate of Zanzibar’s territory and thus slave merchants could transport slaves along the sea without any problem.

In another agreement, the Hammerton Treaty of 1845, the Sultan agreed to prohibit exportation and importation of slaves – though not their transportation – along the coast of East Africa.

Chagga, Pare, and Ukambani, only to find their residents similarly afflicted. Parents reportedly sold children into slavery for food. People starved to death in houses, on roadsides, in gardens, everywhere and were left unburied for no one had strength to dig graves; the number of bodies was too numerous to be disposed by hyena or other scavengers.