Jeanne Baret
French explorer, naturalist and botanist (1740-1807)
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 aboard ship. 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.
“Jeanne Baret” enters the record as french explorer, naturalist and botanist (1740-1807). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Jeanne, Baret and French can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q437168. VIAF identifies the subject as 63516463. The Library of Congress control number is nb2002052350. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1740, 1807, 1766 and 1769.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jeanne Baret” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.