Jeanne Baret

Jeanne Baret ([ʒan baʁɛ]; 27 July 1740 – 5 August 1807) was a French explorer, naturalist, and botanist who is recognised as the first woman to have completed a voyage of circumnavigation of the globe, which she did via maritime transport. A key part of her journey was as a member of Louis Antoine de Bougainville's expedition on the ships Boudeuse and Étoile in 1766–1769.

Jeanne Baret joined the expedition disguised as a man, calling herself Jean Baret. She enlisted as valet and assistant to the expedition's naturalist, Philibert Commerson, shortly before Bougainville's ships sailed from France. According to Bougainville's account, Baret was an expert botanist.

Early life

Jeanne Baret was born on 27 July 1740, in the village of La Comelle in the Burgundy region of France, and baptized the next day. Her record of baptism survives and identifies her as the legitimate issue of Jean Baret and Jeanne Pochard. Her father is identified as a day laborer and is likely to have been illiterate. Her mother died in November 1741 (according to the parish records at the age of 45); her father then married Antoinette Mangematin, who died in 1745, and then Jeanne Teuvenot, who died in 1747 at the age of 40. Baret's father died in December 1755; the register of his death and burial mentions a son Pierre Baret (born 1734) as well as a son-in-law, indicating that Jeanne Baret had a brother and a sister. Overall, next to nothing is known of Baret's childhood or young adulthood, and she does not reappear in official records until 1764. Her biographer Danielle Clode speculates that she lived with her sister's family in Rosières, close to Toulon-sur-Arroux. How Baret obtained an education is unknown, but she had learned to write by 1764 as evidenced by her signature on an official document.