Pierre Poivre

He was a missionary to East Asia, intendant of French colonial islands in the Indian Ocean, and wearer of the cordon of St.

Pierre's surname means "pepper" (Poivre;pronunciationⓘ) in French, leading some authors to identify him as the subject of the Peter Piper rhyme.

In the summer of 1787 he began to wonder whether the culture of dry rice might "enable us to get rid of those ponds of stagnant water so fatal to human health and life."

He had been reading the Voyages d'un Philosophe by Pierre Poivre, a man who had traveled the Far East as a missionary — first for the Catholic faith and then for French colonial agriculture.

During an adventurous life, in which he was captured three times by the British, Poivre introduced the nutmeg, clove, and other Asian plants to the colonies of Isle de France and Ile Bourbon.