Jeanne Baret (1740 -1807)

Jeanne Baret, Engraving, Navigazioni de Cook pel grande oceano e itorno al globo, Volume 2, 1816

Jeanne Baret was a French botanist and explorer who, without formal education, became the first woman to circumnavigate the world.

She was born in Burgundy in 1740 into poverty but was locally considered to be a ‘herb woman’ who could identify plants and treat wounds and diseases.  Whilst collecting plants she met the botanist Dr. Philibert de Commerson and became his assistant, housekeeper and mistress.

Commerson signed up in 1766 with the French Navy Admiral Louis-Antoine de Bougainville on an expedition to travel the world, and Baret accompanied him as his servant, disguised as a boy (as women were not allowed on voyages).  Commerson suffered from ill health and increasingly relied on Baret, who, according to Bougainville:

was already an expert botanist, had followed his master in all his botanical walks, amidst the snows and frozen mountains of the straits of Magalhaens, and had even on such troublesome excursions carried provisions, arms and herbals, with so much courage and strength, that the naturalist had called him ‘his beast of burden’.

In the forests of Brazil it was most likely Baret who discovered the thorny, climbing vine, which was named in honour of their leader, Bougainvillea.  In Tahiti, Baret’s gender was discovered and Bougainville records:

Bougainvillea spectabilis (1772–84), Gabriel Smith after Sydney Parkinson. Natural History Museum

His features, the tone of his voice, his beardless chin, the scrupulous care which he took never to change his linens etc., before anybody, as well as other indications, seemed to confirm this suspicion…Moreover, she knew that it was a case of Voyaging round the world, and this had aroused her curiosity for she would be the first of her sex to do this.  I must, in justice, say that on board she had always conducted herself with the utmost propriety. She is neither ugly nor pretty and is not more than twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age.

Commerson’s health deteriorated as the expedition continued, and he, and his companion, were forced to disembark in Madagascar, which clearly had its compensations as Commerson notes:

I can announce to naturalists that this is the true Promised Land.  Here Nature created a special sanctuary where she seems to have withdrawn to experiment with designs different from those used anywhere else.  At every step one finds more remarkable and marvellous forms of life.

Between them they had collected thousands of plants, many of them unknown species, destined for the French National Herbarium. Commerson was never well enough to return to France and died in 1773. Baret meanwhile continued to collect and send back specimens to France, and eventually returned herself in 1774, and in so doing became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe.  This ‘extraordinary woman’ was later recognised for her assistance and courage and granted a pension of two hundred livres a year.