Jeannot Bullet

Jeannot Bullet (also just Jeannot) was a leader of the Boukman Rebellion in Saint-Domingue and a general of the early stages of the Haitian Revolution (taking the title Grand Judge). Bullet was at the vodou ceremony at Bois Ca&iuml;man. Violent and sadistic, he hated whites and lusted for freedom.

He launched vicious attacks on whites, endlessly devising gruesome methods of putting them to death. Toussaint Louverture was sickened by Bullet's attitudes and actions. (Beard, p. 55)

"Small, thin man with a forbidding manner and a veiled crafty face. He was utterly remorseless... even towards his own kind.  ... He would stop at nothing to gain his own ends, he was daring, seizing quickly on chances, quick-witted and capable of total hypocrisy.  He feared no one and nothing; unfortunately he found inspiration in cruelty, a sadist without the refinements that so-called civilization brings." (Parkinson, p. 40) "He hanged those he had captured by hooks stuck under their chins.  He himself put out their eyes with red-hot pincers.  He cut the throat of a prisoner and lapped at the blood as it flowed, encouraging those around him to join him:  "Ah, my friends, how good, how sweet is the blood of the whites. Drink it deep and swear revenge against our oppressors, never peace, never surrender, I swear by God." (Parkinson, p. 43-4)

"Jeannot, a slave of the plantation of M. Bullet, was small and slender in person, and of boundless activity. Perfidious of soul, his aspect was frightful and revolting. Capable of the greatest crimes, he was inaccessible to regret and remorse. ...Yet was he daring in attack; and when danger pressed, his fear or his fury drove his troops to a resistance proof against attack, or compelled them to snatch a victory by cutting off every way of retreat." (Beard, The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture p. 63)

Jeannot Bullet's Execution
A rival black leader, Jean Francois, had Jeannot arrested and executed, partly because of his cruelty to his white captives. Jeannot supposedly begged for mercy before being shot. His death was described in an account published at the time by one of his white prisoners, Monsieur Gros. There is a graphic depiction of this episode in the contemporary American author Madison Smartt Bell's novel, All Souls' Rising (1995).

Jean Pierre, Toussaint Louverture and Georges Biassou got rid of Jeannot because of his brutality and because he could get in the way of inevitable negotiations with the white French. (Bénot & Dubois)