Collections

The collection has its origins in the institution which generates it, that is, in the Assembly of Ceuta. From 1415, when Ceuta is conquered by the Portuguese, the Governor gathers a small council, the precedent of the Local Chamber. The administrative structure of the City has varied and only some documents have been preserved until now: series of books of minutes, royal decrees, supplies etc.

In the 1880s the first responsible of the archives is appointed, Adolfo Orozco Mérida. The demolition if the City Hall by the end of the 19th c. causes a change of location of the archive. When the new building is inaugurated in 1927 there are several attempts of reorganization of the documents, being appointed for these  jobs the arabist  Antonio Ramos y Espinosa de los Monteros and the lawyer Juan Mena Corrales, and later, as archivists Cayetano González Novelles,  Gabriel Benítez Moreno and finally Pedro del Corral Ruiz, who managed the final settlement and cataloguing of documents.

In 1982 the archive moves to the basement of the former City Hall, after the rehabilitation works. This results in the disaggregation of some documents which had not been catalogued yet and which were in the offices: series of accounts and maps which have been registered later although with some losses.

In 1987 a new system of functional organic classification is established, based on the experience of the new group of archivists from Madrid. Nevertheless, the new system of classification of documents only affected those registered after that date, being the previous catalogue concluded with the classification system used by Pedro del Corral.

Collection of the city council of Ceuta

It joins the documents created by the local administration. It covers the period from 1653, though most documents date back to the 20th c.

The responsible of the archive Pedro del Corral catalogued the collection dividing it into two groups, the files created by individuals or other institutions, which are ordered alphabetically, and those created by the government organs of the council, thematically ordered.

Collections of Photographs

The first photographs of Ceuta date back to 1859, some of them being reproduced or impressed in the city council collections. The collection of the archives preserves mainly images from the 20th century.

The city council collection focuses the local activity, recently increased with acquisitions (mainly postcards) and donations. Among them, we highlight those of the first official writer of Ceuta Antonio Ramos y Espinosa de los Monteros (1871-1919) donated by the family Orozco Rodríguez Mancheño; Enrique Jarque Ros (1913-1991) or the contemporary photographer José Gutiérrez Alvarez.

The most important acquisition is the former Fotografía Calatayud (1909-1990), which contains photos, postcards and plates of Ceuta, Tetouan, Tangier, Larache, Chefchauen or Alcazarquivir among other places. Another interesting purchase was the collection of stereoscopies attributed to Tomás Ibarrecheguren from a trip to Algeciras, Ceuta, Tetouan and Larache in 1934.

Collection of graphics: drawings, printed documents, maps and plans

This collections is based on an interesting collection of maps of the city and its fortifications dated from the 18th to 20th c. This collection has grown thanks to maps of the Straits of Gibraltar and the north of Africa and plans and elevations of the cities of the region such as Ceuta, Melilla, Gibraltar Tétouan and Tangier …

The collection of drafts belongs to the collections gathered de to the town-planning competences of the city, now developed by the Autonomous City, which imply the planning and buildingcarried out  by the institution and individuals.

In this collection you can also find printed documents, posters and hand-written materials such as watercolors and drawings.

Collection of the Santa y Real Casa de Misericordia

In 1498 the Portuguese Crown founds in Lisbon the Casa de Misericordia de Lisboa. This will be the model for those which were later established in other parts of the country and overeas. Historians do not agree in dating the foundation of the Casa de Ceuta. Some say it dates back to one year after the foundation of that of Lisbon, in the index of documents kept in the archive financial cover of 1521 is mentioned, whilst Isabel Mª. Drumond Braga states the existence of financial covers by the end of the 15th c. The documents which mention its first meetings date back to 1559, though there is a document of transfer of the chapel San Blas in 1524.

The life of the institution and the development of the Casas de Misericordia in Portugal are parallel, until 1640, when Ceuta becomes part of the Spanish Crown, manteining its activity until the end of the 19th c.

The activity of brotherhood was focused on the care of children and old people, the education and the dowry for por women, and until the creation by the Crown of the Royal Hospital,  on the health care.

Its more important events were the processions on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and the procession of its main image  the visitation of the Virgin to Saint ELizabeth.

The brothers could be noblemen or workers and some of them were relevant memebrs of the city.

The brotherhood owned an important capital, with high incomes generated mainly by the real property donated to the brotherhood tos ay masses.

The disappearance of the brotherhood happened in 1868, though there are notes of money of the two following years.

By the end of the 19th c, the institution was undergoing a crisis. Its charity functions were attributed first to the Diputación Provincial of Cádiz and later to the City Council.  The documents remain in the same location, which became an home, being moved to the archive of the city council when the home was transferred to a new building, Hogar Nuestra Señora de África, in 1940.