Baie de Fort-Liberté (English: Fort Liberty Bay) is a bay located on the northeast coast of Haiti, north of the city of Fort-Liberté and west of the Lagoon aux Bœufs.
Geography[]
The bay of Fort-Liberté is a bay which is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by a narrow gully open to the north. It stretches from East to West over ten kilometers in length. The bay of Fort-Liberté sinks inland for more than five kilometers through a gully three kilometers long. A small island, called Bayau Island, is located near the center of the bay.
Biodiversity[]
The bay of Fort-Liberté is part of a regional ecosystem encompassing the Lagoon aux Bœufs and the delta of the Massacre river and constitutes an important area for the conservation of birds of exceptional value for birds, water fowl, and sailors.
In 2014, several preparatory missions for the creation of the Parc des 3 Baies and the Lagon aux Bœufs were set up aimed at drawing up a presidential decree creating the "Marine and Coastal Park of the 3 Bays" (Caracol, Fort-Liberté et Limonade) including the Bœufs Lagoon.
Wildlife[]
Among the living species on the lagoon aux Bœufs, lives the West Indian Whistling Duck, the Golden Mango, the Broad-billed Tody, the Black-crowned Tanager, the American Crocodile and the Sea Turtle.
History[]
At the xvi th century, the Spaniards called Bayaha. In the xvii th century, buccaneers use of the islets of the harbor as hideout during hunts on land. After the Treaty of Rijswick in 1697, by which Spain recognized the occupation by France of the western part of Hispaniola, Joseph d'Honon de Gallifet, governor of the La Tortue, settled in the bay making the area a post lookout for the Spaniards.
The August 8, 1730, Étienne de Chastenoye, governor of Île Sainte-Croix, lays the first stone of a fort: Fort-Dauphin, in homage to the Dauphin Louis, son of King Louis XV. The March 26, 1811, Henri Christophe proclaimed himself king of the North, under the name of Henry 1st, Fort Dauphin, which was renamed Fort Royal. The city took the name of Fort-Liberté at the end of the reign of Henri Christophe, in 1820. The bay then took the name of the fort.