Jonestown: former site of the People's Temple commune
in northwestern Guyana, near the Venezuelan border. A religious cult group,
the commune ended in 1978 when the cult's founder and leader, Jim Jones (q.v.),
initiated a mass suicide in which 913 people died.
Please read what CNN wrote about it: http://www.cnn.com/US/9811/18/jonestown.anniv.01/
People's Temple: religious community led by James Warren (“Jim”) Jones (1931–78) that came to international attention after some 900 of its members died at their compound, Jonestown, in Guyana, in a massive act of murder-suicide on November 18, 1978.
Jones began the Peoples Temple informally in the 1950s as an independent
congregation in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was inspired by the ideal of a just
society that could overcome the evils of racism and poverty. Although Jones
was white, he attracted mostly African Americans to the group with his vision
of an integrated congregation. In 1960 the Peoples Temple
affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and four years
later Jones was ordained. In 1965 he warned of a nuclear holocaust and led the
movement to Ukiah, California, where members became active in both Protestant
ecumenical circles and state politics. Branch congregations opened in San
Francisco and Los Angeles, and an agricultural settlement, Jonestown, was
founded in 1974.
Jones's “apostolic socialism” was influenced by the Marxist “liberation theology” popular among Latin American clergy at the time. He mixed social concerns with faith healing and an enthusiastic worship style drawn from the black church. He also invited members to live communally in an effort to realize his utopian ideal. Meanwhile, the church was accused in the press of financial fraud, physical mistreatment of members, and abuse of children in its care. In 1977 Jones led hundreds of the group's members to Guyana.
A year later, Concerned Relatives, a group of ex-members, convinced Leo J. Ryan, a U.S. congressman from California, to visit Jonestown. The visit apparently went well. However, for reasons still not completely understood, Ryan and those accompanying him were murdered when they reached the airport to return to the United States. Shortly thereafter, most of the residents joined together in a mass rite of murder-suicide in which they were either shot or took poison. The members of the group who had remained in California later formally disbanded.
Following the tragedy at Jonestown, the Peoples Temple was identified as a
“cult,” and Jones was depicted by the media as the epitome of an evil cult
leader. Although numerous scholarly and popular studies of Jonestown have been
written, the effort to understand the group and the tragedy continues.
Congress has yet to release the files
from its investigation of Ryan's death.
John Gordon Melton
James Warren (“Jim”) Jones
born May 13, 1931, near Lynn, Ind., U.S.
died Nov. 18, 1978, Jonestown, Guyana
American cult leader who promised his followers a utopia in the jungles of
South America after proclaiming himself messiah of the People's Temple, a San
Francisco-based evangelist group. He ultimately led his followers into a mass
suicide, which came to be known as the Jonestown Massacre (Nov. 18, 1978).
In the 1950s and '60s in Indianapolis, Ind., Jones gained a reputation as a charismatic churchman, and, after moving his headquarters to northern California in 1965 (first settling near Ukiah and then in San Francisco in 1971), he apparently became obsessed with the exercise of power. In the face of mounting accusations by journalists and defectors from the cult that he was illegally diverting the income of cult members to his own use, Jones and hundreds of his followers emigrated to Guyana and set up an agricultural commune called Jonestown (1977). As ruler of the sect, Jones confiscated passports and millions of dollars and manipulated his followers with threats of blackmail, beatings, and probable death. He also staged bizarre rehearsals for a ritual mass suicide.
On Nov. 14, 1978, U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan of California arrived in Guyana with a group of newsmen and relatives of cultists to conduct an unofficial investigation of alleged abuses. Four days later, as Ryan's party and 14 defectors from the cult prepared to leave from an airstrip near Jonestown, Jones ordered the group assassinated. When he learned that only Ryan and four others (including three newsmen) had been killed and that those that had escaped might bring in authorities, Jones activated his suicide plan. On November 18, he commanded his followers to drink cyanide-adulterated punch, an order that the vast majority of them passively and inexplicably obeyed. Jones himself died of a gunshot wound in the head, possibly self-inflicted. Guyanese troops reached Jonestown the next day, and the death toll of cultists was eventually placed at 913 (including 276 children).
Copyright © 1994-2002 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
(Photograph of Reverend Jim Jones and some of his doomed charges courtesy of www.brasscheck.com)