Martyr of the Colombian Revolution of 1817. Policarpa Salavarrieta, also known as "La Pola," was from a family that was apparently respectable and well-off. In 1802 a smallpox epidemic broke out in the capital, killing thousands, including her parents and two siblings. She and two sisters moved to Guaduas around 1804. During the war, her family were involved on the Revolutionary side: her brother-in-law died fighting in the Southern Campaign, in which her brother Bibiano also fought. She was apparently not involved in politics before 1810, but by the time she moved to Bogotá in 1817, she was actively participating in political issues. She and her brother Bibiano entered the capital with forged documents and she and her brother lived in the house of a revolutionary leader, which was a center of intelligence gathering and resistance in the capital. Because she was not known in Bogotá, she could move freely and meet with other patriots and spies, also infiltrate the homes of the royalists. She worked as a seamstress for them, while overhearing conversations, collecting maps and intelligence on their plans and activities, identifying who the major royalists were, and founding out who was suspected of being revolutionaries. She recruited men to be soldiers in the Revolutionary cause. Her operations ran smoothly and undetected until she was implicated in helping soldiers desert the Royal Army, transporting weapons to the insurgents, and in helping revolutionaries escape from prison. She and her brother Bibiano were arrested and taken to prison. On November 10, she and other prisoners were sentenced to execution by firing squad. She was executed with other prisoners in the Bolívar Square. Augustinian friar brothers claimed the body, to give her a proper Christian burial.