Joana firmly held Dona Mariana’s head by her blonde hair, forcing the dark, bitter liquid down her throat. The lady’s blue eyes bulged with terror and agony, understanding too late.

“Drink, ma’am,” Joana whispered, her voice laced with an emotional poison as potent as the infusion of rotten roots that Josefa, the cook, had prepared. “Drink the poisoned milk of the vengeance you denied my son.”

Joana’s heart no longer felt fear. It only beat to the rhythm of an unfathomable pain and a rage that burned like the fire of a sacred ritual.

Just three days earlier, that same rage had been born. Driven by delusional jealousy and rumors of African witchcraft, Dona Mariana had snatched little Benedito, only eight months old, from Joana’s arms while she was breastfeeding him. Ignoring the desperate pleas of the only mother the baby knew, Mariana, her eyes burning with hatred, threw the innocent child straight into the jaws of her three hungry Spanish mastiffs.

The dogs devoured Benedito’s tender flesh in seconds that felt like an eternity to Joana. Her heart shattered.

Now, in the darkened kitchen, Joana observed her handiwork. From the lighted window of the large house, she could see the dancing shadows. She heard the lady’s high-pitched screams as she fell to her knees, her body convulsing violently. Yellowish pus and black blood gushed from her mouth, nose, and ears. Joana methodically wiped her hands on the blood- and bile-soaked apron. Benedito was avenged.

But revenge came at an immediate price. The heavy footsteps of Thomas, the feared foreman, were approaching along the stone corridor.

With the kitchen knife still in her hand, Joana knew there was no time to hesitate. She slipped through the side door into the darkness of the herb garden. From the shadows emerged Madalena, her eyes glistening with unshed tears and a fierce determination. She had seen everything.

“Joana, we have to leave now,” she whispered urgently. “Josefa has alerted the others in the cell. They’re waiting for us in the chapel of Santa Efigênia.”

The two women ran under the cover of night, just as the alarm drums began to sound in the big house. The hunt had begun.

In the abandoned chapel, hidden in the forest, they found Josefa, the young Lúcia, and seven other women. All their faces were marked by suffering, mothers who had lost children, wives who had lost husbands to the whip.

The group debated their future. Should they flee to a quilombo in the mountains, a five-day walk away? Or should they stay and fight?

“I can’t stand hiding like a rat anymore,” Lúcia said, her voice trembling but firm. “I lost my husband when he tried to escape. If we’re going to die, I’d rather die fighting and take some of those demons with me to hell.”

Madalena nodded. “Solitary revenge doesn’t change the system. Joana did what we all dream of, but we must think of something bigger than simply escaping.”

Joana, who had remained silent, processing the death she had just caused, finally stood up.

“Killing Doña Mariana didn’t bring Benedito back,” she said in a firm voice that surprised even herself. “But it made me realize something. We’ve been taught to accept this horrific life because we were told we had no other choice. It’s a lie. What if we’re capable of creating a different reality?”

That night, in the forgotten chapel, a conspiracy was born. They would not flee. They would fight.

The plan was audacious and dangerous. Joana would hide in a secret cellar beneath the slave quarters. Josefa would use her ancestral knowledge of herbs to gradually sicken the overseers, weakening them without killing them. Lúcia and her young daughters would become unsuspecting messengers, carrying coded messages disguised as nursery rhymes. And Madalena would contact Sebastião, a miller who had lost three sons, to rally the men to her cause.

For the next three weeks, a silent revolution transformed the Santo Amaro ranch. Thomás and five other foremen fell ill with mysterious intestinal ailments. Senr. Augusto, consumed by grief, paranoia, and alcohol after his wife’s death, barely left his quarters. The search for Joana had failed.

Meanwhile, Sebastião had secretly recruited seventeen of the strongest and most desperate men.

Tensions erupted in the fourth week. News of a failed rebellion on a neighboring estate put all the lords on high alert. Thomas, though weak, ordered the random flogging of a sixteen-year-old boy as a warning.

As the whip whistled through the air, Sebastião dropped his tool. He deliberately walked toward the whipping post.

“Enough,” she said, her voice calm but full of authority. “We are not going to continue watching our children being tortured.”

Thomás, furious, raised the whip against Sebastião. But before he could strike, the other seventeen men rose and stood beside Sebastião. Eighty more slaves stopped working, watching. The silence was deafening.

Senr. Augusto, alerted, staggered out of the big house and found himself facing an impossible confrontation. He could order his men to fire, but that would mean financial ruin and a total massacre.

At that critical moment, Madalena made a decision. She ran to the basement and freed Joana.

Together, they walked openly toward the confrontation. Cries of astonishment echoed. Joana, the most wanted woman on the ranch, stood there, proud and collected.

“I was the one who killed Doña Mariana,” his voice declared, echoing throughout the sugarcane field. “She murdered my innocent son by throwing him to the dogs. I did justice in the only way this world allows.”

He looked directly at Senr. Augusto. “You can arrest me, torture me, and execute me. But that won’t change the fact that everyone here is tired. We’ve all lost too much.”

What followed was a tense and improbable negotiation. Senr. Augusto, facing total ruin, made a pragmatic calculation. He proposed an experimental arrangement that shocked everyone.

Random floggings would be suspended. Families would no longer be separated by being sold. Small plots of land would be distributed so that slaves could grow their own food on Sundays. In return, the productivity of the plantation would have to increase by twenty percent.

Joana would not be executed. She would remain confined in the senzala under constant surveillance.

It was a compromise that satisfied no one completely, but it left everyone alive. A precarious truce had been forged in the fire of a mother’s vengeance and collective suffering. The Santo Amaro ranch would never be the same again.