José Laguna y Calderón de la Barca was a Spanish sailor who participated in the Río de la Plata in the fight against the English invasion of 1806 and against the May Revolution of 1810.

Biography

José Laguna was born on December 28, 1759 in Badajoz, Spain, son of Manuel de Laguna Becerra y Moscoso and María Antonia Calderón de la Barca y Chamucero.
On November 6, 1777 he entered the Royal Company of Midshipmen and after his graduation he was assigned to the corvette Santa Elena with the rank of ensign.

He participated in corsair campaigns in the Atlantic Ocean and in the Mediterranean Sea, in the combat of Punta de Europa in 1782 and in the bombardments of Algiers and Oran.
In 1786 he entered as a knight in the Order of Santiago and was sent to the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata to join the administration of Viceroy Pedro de Melo de Portugal y Villena.
On October 5, 1802 he was promoted to frigate captain and was appointed Military Commander of the Port of Buenos Aires, dependent on the Apostadero of Montevideo, and judge of first instance for appeals before the Admiralty Court.
During the first British invasion in 1806, Laguna took the launches and coasting ships in the port of Buenos Aires and placed them at the mouth of the Riachuelo, protecting the access to the city through that point.
When the city capitulated, the ships were taken as legitimate prey by the British and the threat of not returning them weighed on the request of their owners to Viceroy Rafael de Sobremonte to cede the funds.
Once in possession of the funds, the British commander William Carr Beresford allowed Laguna and Ensign Martín Jacobo Thompson to return the small but numerous ships to their owners.
Laguna was taken prisoner and as such remained in Buenos Aires, without pay and under promise not to fight against the United Kingdom until he was exchanged, swearing and signing to that effect before British Captain Alejandro Gillespie.

That year he married Casimira Francisca Javiera de Aguirre y Lajarrota, daughter of Agustín Casimiro de Aguirre y Micheo and María Josefa Alonso de Lajarrota y de la Quintana, and sister of José Agustín de Aguirre and Manuel Hermenegildo Aguirre, lawyer, merchant and economist who would participate in the first Argentine governments and would be finance minister of President Bernardino Rivadavia.
On September 24, 1808, a Junta de Gobierno y Observación was constituted in Montevideo under the presidency of Francisco Javier de Elío and in frank disobedience of the capital. Many of the high officers of the Royal Navy, among them the captain of navy Juan Ángel de Michelena and the captains of frigate José Laguna and Jacinto de Romarate, refused to recognize the Montevideo Junta.
In the same sense, when the consequent movement broke out in Buenos Aires with the uprising of Álzaga on January 1, 1809, Laguna supported Santiago de Liniers, and was later promoted.

While the events of May 1810 were taking place, most of the naval officers belonging to the Montevideo command were in Buenos Aires because they were unaware of the Montevideo Junta or by mere accident.
In view of the news, they presented themselves asking for a passport to move to Montevideo, without wanting to recognize the Junta beforehand, under the pretext that their commander was calling them peremptorily to listen to his verbal orders. The Junta, in spite of the obvious excuse, in order to avoid incidents, did not force the oath nor retained them, with which the royalist flotilla was able to recover its commands.

Elío having been summoned to Spain, Brigadier Joaquín de Soria y Santa Cruz (commander general of the Banda Oriental campaign and former Governor of Misiones) was acting governor of Montevideo, but the one who effectively controlled the square was the commander general of the navy José María Salazar.
The exceptions were Pascual Ruiz Huidobro, Ensign Matias de Irigoyen y Quintana (from Buenos Aires who had fought in Trafalgar, Martín Jacobo Thompson and José Laguna.
These were present on the day of May 22 and except for the last one, they voted in favor of the junta. Laguna supported the vote of the oidor Manuel de Reyes, in favor of the continuity of the viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros.

Once a new junta government was consolidated after the events of May 25, Laguna went to Montevideo and remained in the royalist bastion. During the Naval Campaign of 1814 he served as Chief of the Apostadero, until the fall of the city in 1814, being taken prisoner. He escaped and managed to reach Cadiz. In 1817 his wife joined him, settling in Badajoz. He was promoted to brigadier and died in 1828.

He had at least one son, José Casimiro Laguna Aguirre Lajarrota, and a daughter, Dolores Laguna y Aguirre, who married Rodrigo Vaca, son of the first Marquis of Fuentesanta.

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