Fort-Liberte

Fort-Liberté sits on one of the best natural harbours in the Caribbean, a bay almost closed off from the sea by a narrow entrance, which is why the French fortified it heavily in the eighteenth century and laid out a grid town behind. Fort Dauphin covers the entrance and other works ring the bay. The town today is small and slow, the harbour is worked by fishing boats, and very few visitors come this far east.

Background

Fort-Liberté is the administrative capital of Haiti's Nord-Est department and one of the oldest towns in the country. Spanish settlers founded Bayaja here in 1578 and abandoned it in 1605, and the French took up the site again in 1732 under the name Fort-Dauphin. Later names followed: Fort St. Joseph in 1804, Fort-Royal in 1811 and Fort-Liberté from 1820. In 2015 the commune had an estimated 34,434 people, and 22,416 of them lived in the town itself. The landlocked bay is 5 miles long from east to west, and four forts stand around it, two of the larger ones being Fort Lachatre and Fort Labourque. The town is the seat of the Diocese of Fort-Liberté.

Source: Wikipedia, "Fort-Liberté"

Highlights

• The bay - a near-enclosed natural harbour with a narrow entrance to the sea.
• Fort Dauphin - the main fortification covering the channel.
• The French-era grid - the eighteenth-century street plan and its low houses.
• The fishing harbour - working boats on a bay that once took warships.

When to go

November to March is the dry season and the most comfortable. Mornings are best for the harbour. The town is quiet in any season.

Things to know

The forts are unrestored, overgrown in places and without interpretation. There is very little accommodation in town. The road east from Cap-Haitien is slow.

Nearby

Cap-Haitien is west along the coast, and the Dominican border crossing at Ouanaminthe is southeast.

Key facts