 In Araruna, a small town in the State of São Paulo, Brazil, circa 1886, Sinhá Moça and republican Dr. Rodolfo are engaged in a forbidden love affair. Rodolfo is fighting slavery, and Sinhá Moça, besides being an abolitionist herself, is the daughter of Coronel Ferreira, the Baron of Araruna, a man who is thoroughly pro-slavery. To complicate things further, there appears Rafael, a former slave who earned his freedom, and is, in fact, the result of an obscure relationship between the Baron and his slave, Maria Dolores.