The Giant, “Handsome” Slave with Green Eyes — He Drove the Governor’s Daughter Crazy

The captaincy of São Vicente reeked of sweat, sugarcane, and fear. It was 1532, and the Portuguese colony was a land of armed men, fragile sugar mills, and promises of wealth paid for in blood. The sun burned everyone’s skin, but only some had the freedom to seek shade.

Aô arrived on a slave ship from the coast of Guinea, but he was unlike the others. When he stepped down from the hold, chained and exhausted, everyone stopped to look. He was nearly two meters tall, with shoulders broad as beams and dark skin that gleamed under the sun. But what drew attention most were his eyes: green, intense, rare—like they held something that even slavery could not erase.

He was purchased at an exorbitant price by the governor’s sugar mill, Martim Afonso de Souza, the most powerful man in the captaincy, and sent to work in the cane fields. Aô worked in silence, but his presence was imposing. Men felt envy; the women in the senzala (slave quarters) stole glances at him. The masters whispered, “Beware of him. Eyes like that bring trouble.”

Isabel de Souza was seventeen and lived a life empty of desire. The governor’s daughter, she spent her days among imported silks, endless Masses, and suitors chosen by her father. She knew how to smile at the right moment and cast her eyes downward, but she had never truly felt anything—until that afternoon.

She went for a walk and saw a group of slaves returning from the fields. Aô was among them, shirt torn and body glistening with sweat. As he passed near the gate where she stood, something made her lift her head. Their eyes met: green against brown, slave against lady, impossible against forbidden. It lasted only three seconds, but it was enough. Isabel felt breathless. It was dangerous, it was wrong—and for the first time, she did not care.

That night, in her fine linen bed, she could see only those green eyes.

Isabel began inventing excuses to walk the gardens at the same time each day, hoping he would pass. And he did. Always in silence, always with his head bowed, yet always lifting his gaze for a second—a dangerous game of stolen glances.

The housemaids noticed. Isabel was distracted, restless, rejecting suitors. Rumors spread: “The girl is bewitched. It was that new slave. His eyes are of the devil.”

Isabel’s obsession grew. One afternoon, she dared to approach the senzala, hiding behind a tree just to hear the sound of his deep voice speaking a language she did not understand. That night, she wrote on a piece of paper and hid it under her mattress: “Is there anything crueler than desiring the impossible? I see him every day, and I feel myself dying a little… But, my God, how those eyes burn!”

Peace lasted little. During dinner, her father confronted her.

“I’ve heard strange stories, Isabel,” said the governor. “They say you look at the slaves.”
“I’m just walking, father. I need air.”
“Air?” He laughed without humor. “You are my daughter, and you have a reputation. From now on, you go out only accompanied. Understood?”

Isabel nodded, but the net was closing. She knew it was already too late.

That midnight, with a crazy plan in mind, she dressed in dark clothes and slipped out the back door. She walked to the senzala. Her heart pounded so loudly she thought everyone would hear. Trembling, she knocked.

The door opened. There he was: Aô, looking at her with astonishment, fear, and something she immediately recognized: desire.

“I needed to see you,” she whispered. He only stepped back, letting her in.

The interior was dark and suffocating. The figures of other slaves watched them in terror.
“You shouldn’t be here,” said Aô. It was the first time she had heard his voice directed at her.
“I know. But I needed to know… if you feel the same as I do.”

Aô looked at her long and hard.
“Lady, what you feel cannot matter.”
“Why not? Because you are a slave?”
“Because it is wrong,” he replied, though his voice betrayed him. “Because if anyone discovers you came here, I will die. They will burn me alive in the square. Return to your house. Marry. Forget I exist.”
“And if I don’t want to?” Isabel cried. “And if this life suffocates me? If I only see you?”
“Then you will have to learn to live with that,” he said, jaw tense. “I cannot give you anything but pain and death.”

Isabel turned to leave, but paused at the door.
“Do you feel it?” she asked without looking at him. “Do you feel what I feel?”

The silence stretched into eternity.
“Yes,” he whispered, barely audible. “But it changes nothing.”

Isabel ran back, heartbroken. In the following days, she locked herself away. Meanwhile, the rumors exploded: “The governor’s daughter visits the senzala at night! The slave has bewitched her!”

Martim Afonso acted coldly. He ordered the overseer: “That slave, the one with green eyes. Sell him today to the farthest mill you can find.”

But Isabel saw him. From her window, she watched men surround Aô in the cane fields and begin dragging him toward the port.

Something inside her broke. She ran barefoot from the house, shouting, “No! You cannot take him!”

She ran to where three men held Aô and stepped in, shielding him with her body.
“Father, please!” she screamed, seeing the governor emerge.
“Isabel, come inside now.”
“No! I won’t let them take him!”
“You are destroying our name,” he hissed.
“I don’t care!” Isabel shouted, defying her father for the first time. “I don’t care about our name, nor this cursed captaincy!”

The governor struck her with a quick slap, sending her to the ground.

Aô roared, stepping forward, tense against his restraints, eyes burning with fury.
“Don’t touch her!”

The silence that followed was deadly. A slave does not defy the governor. A slave does not protect the master’s daughter. A slave who does, dies.

Aô was dragged to the punishment post in the center of the square. It was a day of example. Isabel, locked in her room, heard the whip slicing through the air and the muffled groans. She pounded the door until her fists bled.

In the square, the governor watched impassively. Twenty lashes, thirty, forty. Aô’s skin split, but he did not cry. “Ten more,” ordered the governor. When it was done, Aô hung from chains, a wreck of flesh and blood. They threw him into the senzala, where the other slaves tried to tend him, knowing he might not survive the night.

The governor entered Isabel’s shattered room.
“You killed him!” she whispered, broken.
“He won’t die. Tomorrow he will be sold to Bahia. You will never see him again. And you, Isabel, will marry the son of Captain Mor in two months.”
“I will never marry him.”
“You will. Either you marry, or I will burn that slave alive in the square—and you will watch.” Isabel felt the ground vanish.
“You wouldn’t…”
“Try me,” he said.

That night, Isabel waited for absolute silence. With a hidden kitchen knife, she climbed out the window and ran to the senzala.

Aô was semi-conscious, his body covered in dried blood.
“Aô!” she whispered, kneeling. “Wake up! We’re running away!”

He opened his eyes, clouded with pain.
“It won’t work…”
“It has to!” she cried with determination. “I’d rather die in the jungle with you than live a whole life without you.”

Aô looked at her and, with superhuman effort, stood.
“Then let’s go,” he said. “If we die, we die together.”

They moved through the shadows toward the jungle. Darkness was thick, but for the first time, Isabel felt free. They walked for hours. Aô grew weaker, his wounds bleeding anew.

Just as the sky began to lighten, they reached a clearing: the burned remains of an indigenous village.
“Was it here?” Isabel asked, devastated.
“It was,” he said. “There is no one left.”

Before they could move, they heard the sound they feared: barking. Distant, but approaching.
“They found us,” said Aô. Panic seized Isabel, but he held her face.
“Listen! I’ll go toward the river, make noise. The dogs will follow me. You run the other way, to the coast. Find a ship.”
“No!” she cried, clinging to him. “If they catch you, they’ll kill you!”
“I know,” he smiled sadly. “But at least you will live.”
“I don’t want to live without you!”

Aô hugged her tightly.
“You gave me something I thought I’d never have again: hope, dignity, love.” He pulled back slightly. “And no one can take that from me.”
“I love you,” Isabel whispered for the first time.
“I love you too,” he said. “In every language I know, in every life I live, always.”

And he kissed her—a quick, desperate kiss, filled with everything they could never have. When it ended, he stepped back.
“Run!” he commanded. “Run and don’t look back!”

Isabel hesitated for a second, then, heart shattered into a thousand pieces, she turned and ran. She ran, hearing Aô shout, diverting the dogs’ attention. She ran as the barking faded. She ran until her legs could go no further and collapsed by a stream, sobbing.

She never knew what happened to Aô. She never knew if he escaped, was captured, or died fighting in the vast Brazilian jungle. But she knew one thing: he had given her freedom.

Years later, Isabel married the son of Captain Mor, as her father had commanded. She lived in the Casa Grande, had children, and grew old among silks and prayers. But every time she saw a pair of green eyes on the street, in a market slave, or reflected in water, she felt a pang in her heart.

And every night, before sleeping, she whispered a prayer. Not for the saints or God, but for Aô—the giant, green-eyed slave who had taught the governor’s daughter what love was, and the terrible price that love demanded.

Her story was never written in books, but in the senzalas, the legend passed from generation to generation: the story of the man who defied the world for love, and the woman who chose to love, knowing it would destroy her. And they said that on full moon nights, one could still hear the echo of two hearts beating together, separated by eternity, for true love does not die. It becomes legend. And in the end, that is the only freedom no one can take.