Canudos was a small village in northeastern Brazil, founded by the messianic leader Antônio Conselheiro and massacred by a powerful army until the death of the last of its 30,000 inhabitants, on October 5, 1897. The film tells the story of the Canudos massacre from an English cannon, nicknamed by the backlands people "A Matadeira", which was transported by twenty teams of oxen through the backlands to fire a single shot.