Fernando de Aramburú was born in San Carlos, in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1770. He was educated in Spain, where he joined the army, and subsequently returned to Río de la Plata at the end of the 18th century, settling in Buenos Aires, and then in 1803 returned to Salta. In 1806 he joined the forces of his province, and accompanied the viceroy Sobremonte in his unsuccessful campaign to reconquer Buenos Aires, during the British invasions of the River Plate.