Francisco Esteban Acuña de Figueroa (September 3, 1791 – October 6, 1862) was a Uruguayan poet and writer.

He did not subscribe to the independence cause, but remained loyal to the colonial governments of Francisco Javier Elío and Gaspar de Vigodet, and after Montevideo fell in 1814, at 25 years old, he was exiled to the Portuguese Court in Rio de Janeiro, where he performed diplomatic functions for Spain.

His father, on the other hand, remained in Montevideo, where he was confirmed in office by the new government because of his capacity for the job.

In 1857, Acuña's poems were published in a book, and the national anthem of Uruguay,[1] which dates from 1833, appeared.

Under that first aspect it is a tribute of veneration and applause inexhaustible to the divine queen of heaven, it is the prayer of the Salve presented and reproducible in almost infinite ways: so many that many millions of years of continuous and incessant reading would not be enough to complete all possible paraphrases of this more or less diverse prayer, which, according to this method, can be formed.