Jonestown, established by the Peoples Temple cult led by Jim Jones in Guyana, became infamous for the mass murder-suicide of its residents in 1978. The settlement is now an abandoned ruin slowly being reclaimed by the jungle. The People’s Temple was founded in Indiana in 1955 and moved to Northern California, where it established organizations to help the sick, elderly, and disabled. In the 1970s, Jones moved the organization to Guyana to avoid taxes and scrutiny. Reports of human rights abuses led to a delegation visiting Jonestown, where they were shot by guards. Jones then ordered a mass murder-suicide, resulting in over 900 deaths. The events illustrate the power of a charismatic leader, and many documents remain classified.
Jonestown was a settlement established in Guyana in the 1970s by the Peoples Temple, a cult led by the Reverend Jim Jones. Although Jonestown was originally founded as a paradise, it has since become infamous for the mass murder-suicide of its residents in 1978. Today, Jonestown is an abandoned ruin slowly being reclaimed by the jungle; most of the area’s native residents avoid it, and given how quickly the jungle can reclaim human settlements, all traces of Jonestown will likely disappear entirely within 100 years of the tragic events that made it famous.
The People’s Temple was a cult founded on ideals of equality, with a strong focus on integration. It was founded in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1955, and the cult later moved to Northern California. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, the People’s Temple established a number of organizations designed to help the sick, elderly, and disabled, including homes for the elderly and camps for disabled children. Despite working with many mainstream organizations, including state welfare systems, the Peoples Temple exhibited many of the hallmarks of a cult, and eventually came under close scrutiny.
In the 1970s, Jim Jones decided to move the People’s Temple out of the United States, ostensibly to free its members from America’s oppressive environment. It is far more likely that the organization was moved in response to growing paranoia on the part of Jim Jones, who also wanted to avoid paying taxes on his considerable net worth. Eventually Jones settled in Guyana as a location for his idealized agrarian community, which he called Jonestown.
There are numerous accounts of Jonestown, including photographs showing the simple huts the people lived in and the fields they tilled for food. As Jonestown’s population increased, strange reports began to reach the United States; there were allegations of serious human rights abuses, including torture. In November 1978, a delegation of people including a congressman traveled to Guyana to investigate these claims, triggering a very unfortunate series of events.
Initially, members of the delegation were denied access to Jonestown altogether. Finally, the men declared that they would visit Jonestown with or without permission, and proceeded to the settlement site, where they were greeted with a ceremonial dinner. During a tour of the site, the team was denied access to many locations, raising concerns as to whether the allegations were true, and several settlement members turned to the delegation for help.
On the morning of November 18, 1978, the delegation prepared to depart, taking several refugees from Jonestown with them. Instead of being allowed to leave, the delegation was shot in cold blood by the Jonestown guards. Footage of the shooting was captured on camera by an NBC reporter, who was killed. That night, Jim Jones lectured in Jonestown. The events of the conference are not fully understood, but it seems likely that Jones was planning a mass murder-suicide before the conference began.
At the conference, Jones announced that citizens would commit mass suicide, suggesting the repercussions for the airstrip shooting would be dire. Vats of poison mixed with juice and various drugs were brought out, and Jones indicated that the events would begin with children; over 270 children were force-fed poison before adults were also ordered to consume it. Judging by the forensic evidence, while some of the adults were certainly intimidated into suicide, others were murdered. Jonestown victims were shot, strangled, forced to consume poison, and injected with toxic substances. Over 900 people died; it took several days for an investigation to be launched, and ultimately only 7 were autopsied, while many remain unidentified thanks to advanced decomposition rates.
The events of Jonestown are an interesting and terrifying illustration of the power a single charismatic leader can have over a group of people. To this day, the exact sequence of events is unclear, thanks to the fact that many documents about Jonestown remain classified in the archives of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Some conspiracy theorists have implied that there may be more to Jonestown than meets the eye, suggesting that the CIA may have been involved, although no evidence supports this.
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