Ángel Calderón de la Barca y Belgrano (2 October 1790 in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata or Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires ( or Virreinato de Buenos Aires or ) meaning "River of the Silver", also called the "Viceroyalty of River Plate" in some scholarly writings, in southern South America, was ...

– 1861) in Spain was a Spanish

nobleman Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally appointed by and ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. T ...

and

diplomat A diplomat (from ; romanization, romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, nongovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one ...

who served Spain at diplomatic posts in the United States and Mexico and as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs from 1853 and 1854. He was a correspondent of William H. Prescott, the eminent American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

. His second wife was

Fanny Calderón de la Barca Frances "Fanny" Erskine Inglis, later the Marquesa of Calderón de la Barca and best known as Fanny Calderón de la Barca, (Edinburgh, Scotland, 1804 – Madrid, Spain, 1882), was a 19th-century travel writer best known for her 1843 memoir ...

, the author of Life in Mexico, an account of the two years the couple lived in Mexico.

Career

In 1843, Calderón de la Barca was elected an Associate Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

. From 1844 to 1853, he served as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

under

Prime Ministers A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but rat ...

Ramon Maria Narvaez and American presidents

John Tyler John Tyler (March 29, 1790 – January 18, 1862) was the tenth president of the United States, serving from 1841 to 1845, after briefly holding office as the tenth vice president of the United States, vice president in 1841. He was elected ...

James K. Polk James Knox Polk (; November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th president of the United States, serving from 1845 to 1849. A protégé of Andrew Jackson and a member of the Democratic Party, he was an advocate of Jacksonian democracy and ...

Zachary Taylor Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850) was an American military officer and politician who was the 12th president of the United States, serving from 1849 until his death in 1850. Taylor was a career officer in the United States ...

, and

Millard Fillmore Millard Fillmore (January 7, 1800 – March 8, 1874) was the 13th president of the United States, serving from 1850 to 1853. He was the last president to be a member of the Whig Party while in the White House, and the last to be neither a De ...

. Between 1853 and 1854, Calderón de la Barca served as

Minister of State Minister of state is a designation for a government minister, with varying meanings in different jurisdictions. In a number of European countries, the title is given as an honorific conferring a higher rank, often bestowed upon senior minister ...

under Prime Minister

Luis José Sartorius Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archaic ...

, during the reign of Queen

Isabella II Isabella II (, María Isabel Luisa de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias; 10 October 1830 – 9 April 1904) was Queen of Spain from 1833 until her deposition in 1868. She is the only queen regnant in the history of unified Spain. Isabella wa ...

Orestes Brownson Orestes Augustus Brownson (September 16, 1803 – April 17, 1876) was an American intellectual, activist, preacher, labor organizer, and writer. Brownson was also a noted Catholic convert. Brownson was a publicist, a career which spanned his affi ...

recounted the following:

Personal life

Calderón de la Barca was married first to Isabel Ana de Vera y Sotosánchez and later to Frances Erskine Inglis, who was granted the Marquisate of Calderón de la Barca in 1877. She wrote ''Life in Mexico'', a successful book concerning their residence from 1839 to 1842 in

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

when her husband was stationed there as an

envoy Envoy or Envoys may refer to: Diplomacy * Diplomacy, in general * Envoy (title) * Special envoy, a type of Diplomatic rank#Special envoy, diplomatic rank Brands *Airspeed Envoy, a 1930s British light transport aircraft *Envoy (automobile), an au ...

In popular culture

Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg ( ; born December 18, 1946) is an American filmmaker. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, Spielberg is widely regarded as one of the greatest film directors of all time and is ...

's '' Amistad'', Calderón de la Barca is played by

Tomas Milian Tomás Quintín Rodríguez-Varona Milián Salinas de la Fé y Álvarez de la Campa (3 March 1933 – 22 March 2017) was a Cuban-born actor with American and Italian citizenship, known for the emotional intensity and humor he brought to starring ...

References

, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Calderon De La Barca Y Belgrano, Angel 1790 births 1861 deaths Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Spanish untitled nobility Foreign ministers of Spain Moderate Party (Spain) politicians