The series' star, Sérgio Cardoso, was criticized at the time for playing a black character, having to paint his body with cork, while there were good black actors who could have played the part.
Glória Magadan, TV Globo series supervisor at the time, didn't want Sérgio Cardoso for the part of Pai Tomás.
The production came to the extreme of freezing a river in the district of Poá, to shoot some necessary scenes.
The production rebuilt a 19th-century boat and put it on the waters of the Francisco River, to simulate the old boats in the Mississippi.
The production built two new studios in São Paulo, specially for this series, but a fire destroyed them 2 weeks before the first episode was aired, and all the shooting had to be relocated to Rio de Janeiro.