Policarpa Salavarrieta

Who was Policarpa Salavarrieta?

Policarpa Salavarrieta, also known as La Pola, was a Neogranadine seamstress who spied for the Revolutionary Forces during the Spanish Reconquista of the Viceroyalty of New Granada. She was captured by Spanish Royalists and ultimately executed for high treason. She is now considered a heroine of the independence of Colombia.

Because her birth certificate was never found, her legal given name is unknown. The name Salavarrieta is known only by the names her family and friends used. Her father referred to her as Apolonia in his will, which Salvador Contreras, the priest who formalized the testament on 13 December 1802, confirmed. Her brother Viviano, who was closest to her because when her parents died she was the one who took care of him. La Pola started being called Policarpa, when the armed forces in Guaduas started looking for.

In her 1817 forged passport, used to get in and out of Bogotá during the Reconquista, she appeared as Gregoria Apolinaria. Andrea Ricaurte de Lozano, whom Policarpa lived with, and officially worked for in Bogotá, as well as Ambrosio Almeyda, a guerrilla leader to whom she supplied information, also called her by that name. Her contemporaries referred to her simply as La Pola, but Policarpa Salavarrieta is the name by which she is remembered and commemorated.