With Biassou and Jean François, he was prophesied by Dutty Boukman to lead the revolution, and fought with the Spanish royalists against the French Revolutionary authorities in colonial Haiti.
He would stop at nothing to gain his own ends, he was daring, seizing quickly on chances, quick-witted and capable of total hypocrisy.
One rebel commander named Blin, who helped some white slave owners to reach safety, for example, was brutally executed for treason by Jeannot.
A man named Gros, who was among a group of white prisoners in a rebel camp under Jeannot's command, left behind a written account of the period.
Before the execution of Gros and the other remaining prisoners, however, a higher ranking rebel leader, Jean-François, arrived in the camp.