Bougainville's Return from Circumnavigation
- When
- 1769
- Where
- port of Saint-Malo, France; aboard the Boudeuse and Étoile and subsequently Mauritius
- Episodes
- 2
On 16 March 1769 Louis Antoine de Bougainville's expedition completed its circumnavigation and arrived at Saint-Malo. Among those aboard was Jeanne Baret, disguised as a man, recognised as the first woman known to have completed a voyage of circumnavigation. She did not return to France with the ships, remaining instead in Mauritius.
Episodes
- Jeanne Baret's Circumnavigation Recognised
Baret, who sailed disguised as a man, is recognised as the first woman to complete a circumnavigation; she remained in Mauritius rather than returning with the ships.
- Return to Saint-Malo
The expedition completed its circumnavigation and reached Saint-Malo on 16 March 1769, ending the 1766–1769 voyage.
Background and detail
Background. Louis-Antoine de Bougainville was a French military officer and explorer who led a scientific circumnavigation of the globe. The expedition sailed on the ships Boudeuse and Étoile between 1766 and 1769, making him the 14th navigator and the first Frenchman to sail around the world, though some credit Richard of Normandie of Magellan's fleet instead.
Jeanne Baret Aboard the Expedition. Jeanne Baret joined the expedition disguised as a man under the name Jean Baret, serving as valet to the naturalist Philibert Commerson. According to Bougainville, her sex was confirmed only when the expedition reached Tahiti in April 1768, though other journals place the discovery in New Ireland, and Tahitians reportedly knew of a woman aboard.
Aftermath. Baret did not accompany the ships back to France. She likely collected plants with Commerson on Madagascar and Bourbon Island in 1770–1772 and acquired property in Port Louis, Mauritius, in 1770. Bougainville published his travel account in 1771 as Le voyage autour du monde, par la frégate La Boudeuse, et la flûte L'Étoile.
People involved
- Louis Antoine de Bougainville · Expedition commander
- Jeanne Baret · Botanist and explorer, disguised as a man; first woman known to circumnavigate the globe
Sources
- Louis Antoine de Bougainville Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-24
- Jeanne Baret Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-25
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.