Historical Figures

Jeanne Barret, explorer and botanist

Jeanne Barret, whose name is sometimes spelled Baret or Baré (1740 – 1807) was a botanist and explorer, considered the first woman to circumnavigate the globe.

Philibert Commerson

Daughter of Jeanne Pochard and Jean Barret, a peasant, Jeanne Barret was born on July 27, 1740 in the village of La Comelle, in Burgundy. Apart from his baptismal certificate, very few traces of his childhood and adolescence have come down to us.

According to Jeanne's later account in Bougainville, she is an orphan who lost her fortune in a lawsuit, but historians agree that she invented certain details of her story to protect herself. We simply know that, despite the fact that her family was probably poor, she learned to read and write and entered the service of the naturalist Philibert Commerson in the early 1760s, as a governess.

As a young widower, Philibert began a relationship with Jeanne, who became pregnant in 1764. Jeanne refused to name the father of her son, Jean-Pierre, who was born in December 1764 and, placed with an adoptive family, died a few months later.

The Sulky and the Star

The following year, Philibert Commerson was invited to join the explorer Bougainville's expedition around the world, aboard the Boudeuse and the Star . In poor health, he wishes the presence of Jeanne Barret as a nurse but also as an assistant in his activity as a botanist. At the time, however, taking on a woman was out of the question. It is therefore disguised as a man, under the name of Jean Baret and as Commerson's valet that Jeanne joins the expedition.

In December 1766, Jeanne and Philibert boarded the Etoile , in a vast cabin that they obtained thanks to the imposing quantity of transported material and which offers them the necessary privacy to cover up the deception. Their presence within the expedition is recounted in the writings of Bougainville himself, in those of Commerson as well as in the accounts of two other members of the expedition:the Prince of Nassau-Siegen and François Vivès, surgeon on the 'Star .

A courageous explorer and a patient botanist

On board, Jeanne Barret spends most of her time taking care of Philibert, who suffers from seasickness and a chronic ulcer. It is in South America that their activity of exploration and collection of specimens really begins. Due to Philibert's state of health, Jeanne carries the equipment and collects a large part of the 5,000 specimens they will bring back from the trip. In his story, Commerson also refers to her as his "beast of burden", and the young woman, always passing for a man, carved out a reputation for strength and courage by not backing down from any adverse terrain. Beyond the expeditions, Jeanne also assists her companion in cataloging the specimens and recording observations.

The end of the journey

According to Bougainville's account, at this stage of the expedition, rumors are circulating about the sex of Jeanne Barret but nothing is confirmed. He says that it was when he arrived in Tahiti, in April 1768, that the deception was discovered:when Philibert and Jeanne arrived on the island, Tahitians surrounded them, claiming that Jeanne was a woman and forcing them to get back on board. The versions differ between the passengers, but it is certain that when the expedition reaches Tahiti, its members know that Jeanne is a woman. The couple is however authorized to continue the journey, to Mauritius where they both disembark. There she continued to assist Philibert, accompanying him on specimen-collecting expeditions to Madagascar in the early 1770s.

“An extraordinary woman”

Still in poor physical condition, Philibert Commerson died on Mauritius in 1773. Alone, Jeanne Barret opened and managed a tavern in Port-Louis for some time. On May 17, 1774, she married Jean Dubernat, a French naval officer. The following year, the couple returned to France and Jeanne thus became the first woman to have traveled around the world. Receiving the share of inheritance that Commerson had intended for her before their departure on the expedition, she settled with her husband in her native village of Saint-Aulaye, in Périgord. In 1785, King Louis XVI granted him an annuity of 200 pounds. The document granting this pension praises her courage and her merits, speaks of her as an “extraordinary woman” and evokes her “exemplary attitude”.

Jeanne Barret died in Saint-Aulaye on August 5, 1807. In 2012, a species of Solanaceae discovered in South America is named Solanum baretiae in his honor.