Mexico in the 1870s. The French expeditionary force lands in Mexico. Emperor Napoleon III of France and local conservatives establish a monarchy in the country and decide to place their protégé, Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg, on the Mexican throne. In the ensuing war of national liberation, the freedom-loving Indians, the Maztecs, led by their chief Bear's Eye, side with the legitimate deposed president of Mexico, Benito Juárez.