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James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American cult leader and mass murderer who led the Peoples Temple between 1955 and 1978. In what Jones termed "revolutionary suicide", Jones and the members of his inner circle planned and orchestrated a mass murder-suicide in his remote jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana, on ...
Jim Jones (born May 13, 1931, Crete, near Lynn, Indiana, U.S.—died November 18, 1978, Jonestown, Guyana) was an American cult leader who promised his followers a utopia in the jungles of South America after proclaiming himself messiah of the Peoples Temple, a San Francisco -based evangelist group. He ultimately led his followers into a mass ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Jim Jones is known for being the leader of the Peoples Temple religious group and for the Jonestown Massacre, when he led the mass murder-suicide o...
- Jim Jones attended Indiana University before transferring to Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he graduated in 1961.
- Jim Jones died of a gunshot wound to the head in Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978. His death occurred during the Jonestown Massacre, when he...
- Origins of the Peoples Temple
- Jim Jones: Rise of a Cult Leader
- Trouble in Paradise: Prelude to Jonestown
- Airstrip Ambush
- 900 Die at Jonestown
Prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the tragedy at Jonestown marked the single largest loss of U.S. civilian lives in a non-natural disaster. The megalomaniacal man behind the tragedy, Jim Jones, came from humble beginnings. Jones was born on May 13, 1931, in rural Indiana. In the early 1950s, he began working as a self-ordained Christian minister in small churches around Indianapolis. In order to raise money to start a church of his own, the charismatic Jones tried various ventures, including selling live monkeys door-to-door.
Did you know? More than 400 unclaimed bodies from the Jonestown tragedy are buried at the Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California, where many of Jim Jones' followers were from. A stone memorial to the Jonestown victims was unveiled at the cemetery in 2008.
In San Francisco, Jones became a powerful figure. He curried favor with public officials and the media, donated money to numerous charitable causes and delivered votes for various politicians at election time. Peoples Temple ran social and medical programs for the needy, including a free dining hall, drug rehabilitation and legal aid services. Jones’ message of social equality and racial justice attracted a diverse group of followers, including idealistic young people who wanted to do something meaningful with their lives.
As Jones’ congregation grew (estimates of the group’s size vary; a 1977 expose by New West magazine put the number of Peoples Temple members at 20,000), negative reports began to surface about the man referred to as “Father” by his followers. Former members described being forced to give up their belongings, homes and even custody of their children. They told of being subjected to beatings, and said Jones staged fake “cancer healings.”
Faced with unflattering media attention and mounting investigations, the increasingly paranoid Jones, who often wore dark sunglasses and traveled with bodyguards, invited his congregation to move with him to Guyana, where he promised them they would build a socialist utopia.
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In 1974, a small group of Jones’ followers went to Guyana to establish an agricultural cooperative on a tract of jungle in the tiny nation of Guyana. (Guyana, which gained its independence from Great Britain in 1966, is the only country in South America with English as its official language.) In 1977, Jones and more than 1,000 Temple members joined them and moved to Guyana. However, Jonestown did not turn out to be the paradise their leader had promised.
Temple members worked long days in the fields and were subjected to harsh punishments if they questioned Jones’ authority. Their passports and medications were confiscated and they were plagued by mosquitoes and tropical diseases. Armed guards patrolled the jungle compound. Members were encouraged to inform on one another and were forced to attend lengthy, late-night meetings. Their letters and phone calls were censored.
Leo Ryan, a U.S. representative from California, heard from some of his constituents that their family members were people being held against their will at Jonestown and decided to go there to investigate. Ryan arrived in Guyana in November 1978, with a delegation that included news reporters and photographers, along with concerned relatives of some of the Peoples Temple members.
On November 17, the congressman and reporters were welcomed to the Jonestown compound, to their surprise, with a dinner and evening of entertainment. Jones even agreed to meet with reporters. However, during the visit, some Peoples Temple members asked Ryan’s group to help them get out of Jonestown.
The same day as the murders at the airstrip, Jones told his followers that soldiers would come for them and torture them. He ordered everyone to gather in the main pavilion and commit what he termed a “revolutionary act.” The youngest members of the Peoples Temple were the first to die, as parents and nurses used syringes to drop a potent mix of cyanide, sedatives and powdered fruit juice into children’s throats. (Jones had reportedly obtained a jeweler’s license at some earlier point, which enabled him to stockpile cyanide.) Adults then lined up to drink the poison-laced concoction while armed guards surrounded the pavilion. This horrific event is the source of the phrase, “drinking the Kool-Aid.”
When Guyanese officials arrived at the Jonestown compound the next day, they found it carpeted with hundreds of bodies. Many people had perished with their arms around each other. Jim Jones, age 47, was found in a chair, dead from a single bullet wound to the head, most likely self-inflicted.
The death toll at Jonestown on November 18, 1978 was 909 people, a third of them children. A few people managed to escape into the jungle that day, while at least several dozen more Peoples Temple members, including several of Jones’ sons, were in another part of Guyana at the time. In total, only 33 survived.
A terrifying recording of the event, known as the “death tape,” helped investigators understand what happened that night. Researches also found over one thousand recordings of propaganda , conversations and sermons that painted a gruesome picture of the activities of the Peoples Temple.
Sep 9, 2024 · Jonestown, (November 18, 1978), location of the mass murder-suicide of members of the California -based Peoples Temple cult at the behest of their charismatic but paranoid leader, Jim Jones, in Jonestown agricultural commune, Guyana. The death toll exceeded 900, including some 300 who were age 17 and under, making the incident one of the ...
- Alison Eldridge
- Jonestown was a remote compound in Guyana built by Peoples Temple cult leader Jim Jones. With little interference from the Guyanese government, Jon...
- The Jonestown massacre was a mass murder-suicide of the Peoples Temple cult at the behest of their leader, Jim Jones, in 1978. After cult members a...
- More than 900 people died in the Jonestown massacre, including some 300 who were age 17 or under. It is one of the largest mass deaths in American...
- Jim Jones was the leader of the Peoples Temple cult who initiated a mass murder-suicide at the Jonestown compound in Guyana. He opened his first ch...
- Jim Jones orchestrated the mass murder-suicide of Peoples Temple cult members on November 18, 1978.
Nov 13, 2018 · Jim Jones used armed guards and threats to force 'suicides.' Scheeres says she felt a deep connection to Tommy Bogue, a survivor she interviewed for her book, who was a teenager at the time and ...
- Lesley Kennedy
- 2 min
Apr 2, 2014 · Jim Jones was the cult leader of the Peoples Temple who led more than 900 followers in a mass suicide known as the Jonestown Massacre. Learn more at Biography.com.
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The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, better known by its informal name " Jonestown ", was a remote settlement in Guyana established by the Peoples Temple, an American cult under the leadership of Jim Jones. Jonestown became internationally infamous when, on November 18, 1978, a total of 918 [ 1 ][ 2 ] people died at the settlement, at the ...
