This Mexican film re-creates a dark chapter in the history of Chile. The scene is a small Chilean mining town in 1907. Suffering under the despotic rule of the British mine owners, the workers stage a revolt. The government's solution is to utterly destroy the town rather than allow the rebellion to spread. Letters from Marusia was adapted from a novel by Patricio Manns, which in turn was based on eyewitness accounts of the 1907 massacre.