Why Ceuta is as Spanish as Cádiz or Oviedo

Ceuta, the city that chose Spain in 1640

On 21 August 1415, a Portuguese fleet landed in Ceuta. John I of Portugal, with Henry the Navigator among his men, took the city in the campaign regarded as the start of European overseas expansion. For a century and a half, Ceuta was Portuguese.

In 1580, the union of crowns under Philip II brought it into the Hispanic Monarchy, just like Lisbon. When Portugal rose up in 1640, the logical outcome was for Ceuta to return to the Portuguese orbit. It did not. It was the only territory of the empire that stayed with Spain. The same pattern repeats with Melilla, the other autonomous city on that North African strip: geography does not decide sovereignty.

The geographic argument does not stand up to scrutiny

To claim that Ceuta is not Spanish because it lies on another landmass is to forget that Hawaii belongs to the United States, Sicily to Italy and Rügen to Germany. Sovereignty rests on history and law, and in Ceuta's case there is a chain that begins with the Visigothic kingdom of Spania, continues through the Portuguese period and is consolidated in 1640.

The Segarro claim and the argument that has grown old

Segarro's claim remains on the table. The chronological review finds no comparable title: no North African political formation ever exercised continuous sovereignty over Ceuta with anything like such antiquity. But an uncomfortable reading also emerges: Castile occupied strongholds in North Africa as a defensive belt against piracy and invasions. If that function is dead, what sustains the presence? Some answer: simply having been Spain for 600 years.

Perhaps the answer lies in the gesture of 1640. Ceuta could have trinc Lisbon's path and did not. Loyalty, calculation, or a bit of both. The unsettling fact: six centuries later, it remains the part of Spain that has had to explain most often why it is Spain.