During the 1800s, paroled Brazilian bandit Cobra Verde is sent to West Africa with a few troops to man an old Portuguese fort and to convince the local African ruler to resume the slave trade with Brazil.

The feared bandit Cobra Verde (Klaus Kinski) is hired by a plantation owner to supervise his slaves. After the owner suspects Cobra Verde of consorting with his young daughters, the owner wishes him gone. Rather than kill him,the owner sends Cobra Verde to Africa. The only white man in the area, Cobra Verde finds himself the victim of torture and humiliation. Later, he trains soldiers in a rebel army. Far from home, Cobra Verde is on the edge of madness.—Ken Miller <[email protected]>

In the Nineteenth Century, in Bahia, the bandit Francisco Manoel da Silva aka Cobra Verde is feared and respected by the locals. He is hired by the lord Octavio Coutinho to work as henchman in one of his plantations of sugar cane, supervising the slaves and the production of sugar. When the three daughters of Octavio are pregnant of Cobra Verde, he is sent to Almeria, in the West of Africa, to negotiate slaves with the crazy African King Abomey, in times when this trade was prohibited by Great Britain. The loneliness associated to the fact of being the only white man in Almeria drives Cobra Verde to insanity.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil