Bougainville’s Expedition Reaches Tahiti

In early April 1768, two French naval vessels under the command of Louis-Antoine de Bougainville reached the island of Tahiti. Bougainville had received permission from King Louis XV in 1766 to lead France's first official circumnavigation of the globe, an enterprise intended in part to rebuild French international standing following extensive territorial losses in the Seven Years' War. Setting sail from Nantes in late 1766 aboard the frigate Boudeuse, later joined by the transport vessel Etoile, Bougainville conducted the voyage with a corps of scientific observers, including astronomers, cartographers, and the botanist Philibert Commercon.

Unbeknownst to the French expedition at the time of their approach, British naval officer Samuel Wallis aboard HMS Dolphin had already visited and claimed the island less than a year earlier. Unaware of Wallis's recent visit, Bougainville claimed Tahiti for the French crown, naming it New Cythera in homage to Aphrodite. During the stay, French crew members recognized that Commercon's valet was actually Jeanne Baret, a botanist who had disguised her gender to join the voyage and would later become known as the first woman to complete a global circumnavigation.