In the late 18th century, Angel Kelly sets sail from Liverpool aboard the Atlas, with the intention of setting up a Utopian commune in Brazil. Before he arrives, there is a mutiny on the ship, and he and the crew are left stranded upon the coast of an unnamed Spanish colony in Latin America. Angel is rescued by a local Amerindian child named Esa, and brought to her settlement where all the crew are cared for, but later the crew conspire with a local colonist to displace their Amerindian hosts so as to make way for a mine.

Eight years later, Esa is looking for revenge, using the revolutionary fervour of the times to stage an uprising against the Spanish colonists, but she ends up finding herself trapped in a deadly game of espionage and proxy war between the European empires.