Àngela Bivern Puig was born in 1787 in Girona and when she was 22 years old she was designated major of one of the Santa Dorotea sections, from the Santa Barbara Company. The Santa Barbara Company was a female militar squad created in 1809 in Girona by the general Álvarez de Castro for giving help to the defenders of the city during the third napoleonic siege, during the Independence War. The squad joined twenty women, divided in four crews of thirty women each, commanded respectively by Llúcia Joana, Àngela Bivern. Ramona Nouviles and Carme Custy. They brought supplies and munitions to the fighters in the bastions and walls and they assisted the injured ones, for organization, for the wounded move to the nearest cure center or, in some cases, for collaborating in the fight.  When the siege ended they had had casualties. They used to wear in the elbow, as a company characteristic, a red ribbon.

Àngela wanted to participate in the fight but they wouldn’t let her, so she paid a fighter with her money so she fighted in the war for her, to serve the Girona Crusade. In 1814 she had the opportunity to meet the king Ferran VII, when he returned from the French exile, and to tell her paper in the Santa Barbara Company during the sieges. In 1816 she was awarded with the Girona Siege Cross and the king Ferran VII, as a recognition of her valenty, gave her an annual pension of two hundred and fifty ducado, he received her and kissed her hand four times, two in the Ballesteries Street and two during the reception celebrated in the Carles House saloons, and the same so Àngela’s sister, Magdalena.