According to Esteban Aybar, a soldier in the war and restructuring of Independence of the Dominican Republic, Juana was seen in Santo Domingo in 1852 earning pay as a Colonel working for the government.

Once the Dominican troops arrived in La Vega, among which there were people from her native place led by a relative of hers, Marcos Trinidad, Juana went to the barracks to participate in the fight against the Haitians.

Esteban Aybar y Aybar, a native of San Cristóbal and a soldier of both the Independence and the Restoration wars, wrote in his memoirs (partially published by Despradel Batista):[1] “…the death that a life-long woman gave to a Haitian colonel, whose name was Merced and by bad nickname (to) Md.

In an article published in "El Progreso", in La Vega, Dr. Jovino A. Espínola reproduced the testimony of Bríjida Minaya (Mamá Billa) (in Despradel Batista): Yes; Juana at that time was a braver woman than many men; I will tell you that at a party they had at "La Jina Mocha", I witnessed Juana slap Bartolo Pérez on the floor, because he tried to abuse her by throwing his arm around her shoulder and pulling her.

I must also tell you that in Santiago she fought a lot against the dark French [Haitians]; In those fights, Juana drove forward the men who were cowering, she tended to the wounded, she gave water to the combatants to quench their thirst and cool the cannons, she brought gunpowder in his apron or handkerchief to the artillerymen and sang songs to the soldiers so that they would always be happy and brave.

Listen, [she told me], Juana was from Jamo, she stayed here in the town and could be my mother, I was very young then, she was about thirty years old and she couldn't take her good Madras scarf off her head.It was a fateful day on February 6, 1860, that Saltitopa, while returning from her native home in Jamao, she was darkly murdered between Nibaje and Marilópez, on the way to and in the vicinity of Santiago de los Caballeros, the noble town that she adopted as her own after having established herself there as an eponymous, almost legendary, protagonist of the glorious feat of the Battle of Santiago in 1844.

Juana Saltitopa left as a legacy to the Dominican Republic a flame of female heroism and her example, embodied in the battles for the independence of her country.