The department was part of the Taino kasika of Marien on the border with the Magua.

The city of Fort-Liberté is one of the earliest European settlements in the Caribbean with the creation of Puerto-Real (Port-Royal) in 1503.

The Nord-Est forms part of the northern plains, a historic site of colonial plantations and a key area for the cultivation of chestnut Toussaint Brave freed the city of Fort Liberté on September 9, 1803.

After the Battle of Vertières, on November 29, in the town of Fort-Liberté, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Henry Christophe, and Auguste Clerveaux declared St-Domingue free and declared: ...in the name of the black people, and men of color of St.

Domingo...Restored to our primitive dignity, we have asserted our rights; we swear never to yield them to any power on earth... Toussaint Brave and Clearveaux of the Armée Indigène and followers of Toussaint Louverture, commander of the first division of the North signatories of the Haitian Declaration of Independence.

The town played a big role in the fight against the occupation of the 1930s by the United States.