This province was the last independent holdout during the Spanish conquest of Hispaniola until the Taíno queen Anacaona, who was born in the town, was captured and killed by the Spaniards in 1503.

[5] The French secured legal access to one-third of the island from the Spanish crown by the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 and established a city.

[7][8][9] In 1803, later in the Haitian Revolution, Jean-Jacques Dessalines ordered his men to burn the town to the ground to force out the last of the French colonists.

Léogâne was also the birthplace of Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité, an Empress of Haiti and wife of Haitian revolutionary Jean-Jacques Dessalines.

[11] Among the facilities destroyed in the quake was the Sainte Rose de Lima School, considered the emotional heart of the city.

[18][19] The missionaries of World Wide Village set up outpatient clinics beside the Japanese Red Cross at the nursing school in Léogâne within days after the earthquake.

World Wide Village and the University of Notre Dame continued to send teams to the nursing school and field hospital to meet ongoing health care needs in Léogâne.

[citation needed] As Léogâne has no airport, the Canadians used the small strip at Jacmel to avoid the bottleneck in Port-au-Prince and had 250–300 personnel there the next day.

[11] With no airport in Léogâne, any aid needing to be airlifted in had to be carried by helicopter or through use of small planes on makeshift landing strips.

The areas in this group include Fond de Boudin, Palmiste à Vin, Gros Morne, Cormiers, Petit-Harpon, and Citronnier.

The commune of Léogâne has six rivers (Rouyonne, Momance, Cormier, Ravine Seche, Haut-Saut, and Courbyon, in addition to nineteen streams, two ponds and a lagoon.

The Jean Léopold Dominique sugar mill in Darbonne produces surplus cane molasses, some of which is supplied to the smaller alcohol distilleries around the commune.

It is one of the major cash crops for Léogâne's peasants living in the humid mountain areas considered ecologically strategic for the country.

Tombe Gateau Léogâne is home to the largest coffee mill in Haiti which serves the Southeast region, Center, Artibonite, and Grande-Anse.

[42] The production of building materials plays an important role in the local economy and is in fierce competition with the agricultural sector.

Léogâne has the capacity for 100,000 active farmers to enter the labor market, excluding prospective workers coming from neighboring municipalities.

Léogâne has many tourist attractions including renovated historical sites such as Fort Campan, Latounèl Gwoso, and one of the most ancient windmills in the western hemisphere, located in Baussan.

The rehabilitation of natural caves such as the grotto Belloc, Anacaona, and Fond d'Oie offers visitors a unique experience in Léogâne.

Each year thousands of people from all over the country make religious pilgrimages to Léogâne to visit the many patron Saints in the area.

Léogâne is the host location for several annual cultural events which attract thousands of national and international visitors to the city each year, notably Rara and Fête Champêtre.

[44] Léogâne is the bastion of Rara, a rural festival that is one of the most popular cultural events of Haitian origin, dating to colonial times.

The phenomenon of Rara is at once a season, a festival, a genre of music, a religious ritual, a form of dance, and sometimes a technique of political protest.

Rara season attracts positive media attention and stimulates commercial activity that generates significant revenue for the cultural, tourism, and hospitality industries by drawing many visitors to Léogâne.

[12] Prior to the earthquake, there was a hospital run by the Episcopalian Diocese, with Presbyterian missionary collaboration; Hopital Sainte-Croix (Holy Cross).

[27][47] Since 2005 (before the 12 January 2010 earthquake) the city has had an Episcopalian nursing school, Faculté des Sciences Infirmières de l'Université Épiscopale d'Haïti à Léogâne.

The club won its first national championship in 2012 and several of its former players have secured professional contracts in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States.

[citation needed] Deep Springs International (sponsor of Gadyen Dlo) and the Children's Nutrition Program[49] are based in Léogâne.