Vicente San Bruno was born in
Aragon, and in his youth he took minor order in a
Franciscan convent. In 1808, San Bruno left the convent and joined the Spanish army as a soldier at the time of the French invasions. He fought bravely during the
Peninsular War and won a promotion to officer. On December 25, 1813, he set sail for
Peru under the command of
Rafael Maroto as a captain in the Queen's Talavera Regiment. They disembarked at
Callao on April 24, 1814, to support
Viceroy José Fernando de Abascal y Sousa, who had been working arduously to maintain his viceroyalty and the bordering territories under Spanish control. Maroto and his troops, which included San Bruno, were placed under the orders of Brigadier
Mariano Osorio and sent to
Chile, which had
risen in rebellion after the French invasion of Spain.
In Chile San Bruno and the Talavera Regiment embarked on July 19, 1814, arriving at the naval base of
Talcahuano, the nucleus of royalist activity, on August 13. Brigadier Osorio succeeded in organizing local elements into a mobile army of some 5,000 men, of which the troops of the Talavera Regiment were practically the only Spaniards. This circumstance led the Talavera Regiment to manifest a marked disdain for its opponents and the
Criollo troops in general, typical of
Peninsulares recently arrived in the Americas. On October 1, the two sides fought in
Rancagua, an attempt to prevent the expeditionaries from taking
Santiago. The Talavera attacked the enemy fortifications without bothering to send in either scouts or guerrillas. The result was that bombarded by the volley of shots, they were forced to retreat with heavy losses. Nevertheless, by November Spanish control had been reestablished, and San Bruno was put in charge of carrying out the orders of imprisoning the civilians suspected of having helped or sympathised with the independentists. On February 6, 1815, he became infamous when he opened the doors of the public jail of Santiago, and when the prisoners came out, had them all killed under the pretext that they were trying to escape. After
Francisco Marcó del Pont became
Royal Governor, San Bruno acquired almost unlimited authority. Two of the squadrons of the Talavera Regiment were sent back to Perú, but San Bruno stayed in Chile as commander of the remaining squadron. On January 17, 1816, he was named president of the
Court of Vigilance and Public Security, which acted as secret political police. As such he instituted a reign of terror in order to quash any possible rebellion. ==Death==