INSTITUTO
DE ESTUDIOS CEUTÍES
"INVESTIGACIÓN Y DIVULGACIÓN"
ORGANISMO AUTÓNOMO DE LA CONSEJERÍA DE
EDUCACIÓN, CULTURA Y JUVENTUD DE LA CIUDAD DE CEUTA
During the eighteenth century the Bourbons tried to integrate the management of Ceuta in Spain, but always hitting the resistance of Ceuta, who preferred their institutions of the fuero .
The negotiations would be tough, and every royal grant would entail the negotiation of any of their privileges. However, gains would be noticeable.
The eighteenth century began with the walled city and continues with other difficult wars and harder epidemics. However, as far as the city is concerned, it leads to the founding of a new population: Almina.
The need for new fortifications, bring the army to its vicinity, as well as to protect civilians forced to build new neighbourhoods in Almina, around an axis that will be the Calle Real, with two walkways in the north and south- Marina and Recinto - with all kinds of services such as hospitals, churches, monasteries, markets ...
Carried by liberalism
The union with Spain was consummated in the eighteenth century, but then a political turnaround was missing. To this end, the proclamation of the Constitution of 1812 will be essential.
Ceuta is going to be one of the Spanish bastions against France’s, refuge of nobles and politics, joined with exiled American politicians. With this influx of people and ideas, everything changes and one of the first things to be created is the Town Board, now the Constitutional Town Hall.
Unfortunately, the political ups and downs of the nineteenth made the progress as a city difficult , since Ceuta had to live with its reality as stronghold and prison. However, it will acquire a blooming middle class, usually supported by Freemasonry, who gave rise to the press, the emergence of schools and the proliferation of venues for leisure and entertainment which in those days revolved around the theatre, bulls and eventually film.
The contemporary world
The War of 1859-60 brought an awareness of the Government of Ceuta that it needed a new port. In addition, the redrawing of boundaries led to population growth which would be increased with the colonial division.
In 1912 Ceuta sees hopefully the introduction of the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco. It left behind the prison and looked at how a new port was to be built. However, the future might not hold to be the long-awaited entry into Morocco.
The Civil War brought nothing but repression and once finished the Protectorate, the city found prosperity in the closure of the Gate of Gibraltar, becoming a substitute international market.
Restoring the monarchy, new alternatives were found, which have been given by both the entry into the European Union and the high degree of competence granted by the Statute of Autonomy, now having put our hopes in cultural tourism.