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For other uses, see Jonestown (disambiguation).
Houses in Jonestown

Jonestown was the communal settlement made in northwestern Guyana by the Peoples Temple, a cult from California. Jonestown was founded in the mid-1970s by the cult leader, Jim Jones, for whom it was named, but it was occupied only for a few years. It stood amidst jungle, about seven miles (11 km) southwesterly from Port Kaituma.

Jonestown gained lasting international notoriety in 1978, when nearly its whole population died in a mass murder-and-suicide ordered by Jones. Jones himself was among the slain, numbering somewhat over nine hundred men, women and children.

The place was promptly abandoned by the collapsing remnant of the Peoples Temple. Afterward, it was at first tended by the Guyanese government, which allowed its re-occupation by Hmong refugees from Laos for a few years in the early 1980s, but it has since been altogether deserted.[1]

Origins

The Peoples Temple was formed in Indianapolis, Indiana, during the mid-1950s.[2] In the 1960s, Jones' congregation had dwindled to fewer than a hundred members and was on the verge of collapse. Jones managed to secure an affiliation with the Disciples of Christ.[3] This new association bolstered the Temple's reputation, increased its membership, and spread Jones' influence. Beginning in 1965, Jones and about 80 followers moved to Redwood Valley in Mendocino County, California,[3] where they believed they would be safe from nuclear fallout if there were a nuclear attack on the United States.[specify]

In 1972, Jones moved his congregation to San Francisco, California and opened another church in Los Angeles, California. While in San Francisco, Jones changed his political image from anti-Communist to socialist, vocally supported prominent political candidates, was appointed to city commissions and made grants to local newspapers with the stated goal of supporting the First Amendment.[citation needed] Partly inspired by Father Divine,[specify] he began charity efforts with the goal of recruiting the poor.

After several scandals and investigation for tax evasion[4] in San Francisco, Jones began planning a relocation of the Temple. According to the American Journal of Economics & Sociology, Jones considered locations in California and Brazil before settling on Guyana. In 1974, he leased over 3,800 acres (15.4 km²) of jungle land from the Guyanese government.[5] Soon, members of the People's Temple began the construction of Jonestown under the supervision of senior Temple members. Jones then went back to California before he encouraged all of his followers to move to Jonestown in 1977.[5] Jonestown's population increased from 50 members in 1977 to more than 900 at its peak in 1978.[specify]

Jonestown established

Many of the Peoples Temple members believed that Guyana would be, as Jones promised, a paradise. Instead, most of Jonestown's residents, including children, ended up raising food and animals for the "Peoples Temple Agricultural Project".[specify] The work was performed six days a week, from seven in the morning to six in the evening, with temperatures that often reached over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), in Guyana's equatorial climate.

According to some, meals for the members consisted of nothing more than rice and beans while Jones dined on eggs, meat and soft drinks from a private refrigerator, separate from the others.[6] However, other former members of the Peoples Temple reportedly dispute that members received inferior or different food from Jones. [citation needed] Medical problems such as severe diarrhea and high fevers struck half the community in February 1978. According to the New York Times,[7] copious amounts of drugs such as Thorazine, sodium pentathol, chloral hydrate, Demerol and Valium were administered to Jonestown residents, with detailed records being kept of each person’s drug regimen; Jonestown residents claimed the drugs were administered to control their behavior.

File:Jim Jones' Cabin.jpg
Jim Jones' Cabin

Various forms of punishment were used against members considered to be serious disciplinary problems. Methods included imprisonment in a 6x4x3-foot (1.8 X 1.2 X 0.9 m) plywood box and forcing children to spend a night at the bottom of a well, sometimes upside-down.[2] Members who attempted to run away were drugged to the point of incapacitation. Armed guards patrolled the compound day and night to enforce obedience to Jones.

Children, surrendered to communal care, addressed Jones as "Dad" and were only allowed to see their real parents briefly at night. Jones was called "Father" or "Dad" by the adults as well.[8] Up to $65,000 in monthly welfare payments to Jonestown residents were appropriated by Jones, whose own wealth was estimated to be at least $26 million.[9]

Local Guyanese, including a police official, related stories about harsh beatings and a "torture hole," a well into which Jones had "misbehaving" children thrown in the middle of the night. Jones had terrified the children by making them believe there was a monster living at the bottom of the well, which was in fact Jones' henchmen who pulled and tugged the children's legs as they descended into the well.[specify]

The mass suicides that would make Jonestown notorious were rehearsed during "white nights". In an affidavit, Peoples Temple defector Deborah Layton explains how these were rehearsed.[10]

Everyone, including the children, was told to line up. As we passed through the line, we were given a small glass of red liquid to drink. We were told that the liquid contained poison and that we would die within 45 minutes. We all did as we were told. When the time came when we should have dropped dead, Rev. Jones explained that the poison was not real and that we had just been through a loyalty test. He warned us that the time was not far off when it would become necessary for us to die by our own hands.

Investigations

On Tuesday November 14, 1978, Congressman Leo Ryan, a Democrat from San Francisco, flew to Guyana, along with a team of 18 people, consisting of government officials, media representatives and members of the group "Concerned Relatives of Peoples Temple Members." The group included Ryan, his legal advisor Jackie Speier, Neville Annibourne, representing Guyana's Ministry of Information, Richard Dwyer, Deputy Chief of Mission of the US Embassy to Guyana at Georgetown (and allegedly a CIA agent[citation needed]), reporters Tim Reiterman, Don Harris, Greg Robinson, Steve Sung, Bob Flick, Charles Krause, Ron Javers, Bob Brown, and Concerned Relatives representatives Anthony Katsaris, Jim Cobb and Carolyn Houston Boyd.

Ryan and the others intended to investigate allegations that human rights were being violated daily at the Peoples Temple, that individuals were being held against their will, that individuals had their money and passports confiscated, that mass suicide rehearsals were being conducted, and that seven attempted defectors were killed.[11]

From the time Ryan and the others arrived at midnight in Georgetown, the capital city of Guyana, before Wednesday the 15th, there were signs that things would not run smoothly. Previously booked hotel rooms were occupied and the group had to find other lodgings. In the days that followed, Jones' lawyers in Georgetown, Mark Lane and Charles Garry, refused to allow Ryan's party access to Jonestown.

During his stay at Georgetown, Ryan visited the Temple headquarters at a large house called "Lamaha Gardens". At a rear patio, Ryan spoke with Temple members Laura Johnston Kohl and others, who showed him around the house's first floor. Ryan asked to speak to Jones by radio, but Sharon Amos, the highest-ranking Temple member present, advised Ryan that his present visit was unscheduled. Members recalled Ryan as a likeable man who had a bad cold.

Ryan’s Jonestown visit

Finally, by late morning on Friday, November 17, Ryan informed Lane and Garry that he would leave for Jonestown at 2:30 p.m., regardless of Jones' schedule or willingness. Ryan's party did so at roughly that time, accompanied by Lane and Garry, and came to Port Kaituma airstrip, 10 km from Jonestown, some hours later. Only Ryan and three others were initially accepted into Jonestown, but the rest of Ryan's group were allowed in after sunset.

It was later reported (and verified by audiotapes recovered by investigators) that Jones had run rehearsals in how to receive Ryan's delegation, to convince them that everyone was happy and in good spirits.

On the night of Ryan's arrival, there was a reception and concert held for the Ryan delegation. Temple members were carefully selected by Jones to accompany individual visitors around the compound. Some were angry and saw the Congressman's visit as trouble brought in from outside, while many went on with their usual routines. Two Peoples Temple members (Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby) made the first move for defection that night, and Gosney passed a note to an NBC journalist, reading "Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby. Please help us get out of Jonestown."[12]

That night the Ryan delegation (Ryan, Speier, Dwyer, and Annibourne) stayed in Jonestown. The entire press corps and the members of Concerned Relatives were told that they had to find other accommodations, and so they went to Port Kaituma and stayed at a small café.

In the early morning of November 18, more than a dozen Temple members sensed danger enough to walk out of the colony toward Matthew's Ridge, in the opposite direction of the airstrip at Port Kaituma. These defectors included the five members of the Evans family and Leslie Wilson and her two sons, who were the family of Jonestown's head of security, Joe Wilson. Later, when the reporters and Concerned Relatives had arrived, Marceline Jones, wife of Jim Jones, gave a tour of the settlement for the visiting reporters. There was a dispute outside a small dormitory building, where elderly black female temple members were living. The windows and doors were all shut, and Jones loyalists accused the press of being racist for trying to invade the privacy of the elderly women. The journalists replied that they wanted to know about the living conditions.

Jim Jones woke late on the morning of November 18, and the NBC crew handed him Vernon Gosney's note. Jones was angry and believed that those who wanted to leave the community would "lie" and destroy Jonestown. Jones and many other members of the Peoples Temple saw themselves as a family that had the right and the duty to stay together. Then two families stepped forward and asked to be escorted out of Jonestown by the Ryan delegation. They were the Parks and the Bogue families, along with Christopher O'Neal and Harold Cordell, who were partners of women in the two families. Cordell would lose 14 family members (ages 2-76) that evening during the poisonings. The Bogues would lose their daughter Marilee (18), and Gosney would lose his son Mark (5).

Jones was angry, even though other members and visitors told him it was actually a compliment that out of over 1,000 people only a few dozen wished to leave. Jones then gave them permission to leave, with some money and their passports. Jones also told them they would be welcome to come back at any time. That afternoon, there was a very long negotiation under a pavilion, during which Jones was upset by news that the Evans and Wilson families had defected on foot.

While negotiations proceeded under the pavilion, some new emotional scenes developed between family members. Al Simon, an Amerindian member of the Peoples Temple, walked toward Ryan with two of his small children in his arms and asked to go back with them to the US, but his wife Bonnie was summoned on the loudspeakers by Jones' staff and she loudly denounced her husband. Another famous scene took place on camera between Maria Katsaris (Jones' staff member) and her brother Anthony. He pleaded with her to return to the US and consult with their family, but she bitterly rejected his suggestion. Maria pulled off her gold necklace, threw it at her brother and cursed him as the visitors and defectors were about to leave.

Violence breaks out

Because more people were leaving than had been expected, and due to the limited seating available on the small Cessna aircraft Ryan had chartered back to Georgetown, Ryan planned on sending a group there, and staying behind with the rest until another flight could be scheduled.

Temple member Don Sly (nicknamed "Ujara"), acting directly under Jones' orders, attacked Ryan with a knife. This was one of a series of orders Jones gave that day which had one or more of his loyalists taking drastic action without any other loyalists knowing of Jones' instructions, resulting in much confusion between Temple members. In fact, when Sly attacked Ryan, other loyal Peoples Temple members helped stop the attack.

Although the congressman was not seriously hurt in the attack, he and Dwyer realized the visiting party and the defectors were in danger. Ryan's party and 16 ex-Temple members left Jonestown and reached the nearby Port Kaituma airstrip at 4:30 p.m., where they planned to use two planes (a six-passenger Cessna and a slightly larger Twin Otter) to fly to Georgetown.

Shortly before the scheduled departure, Jones loyalist Larry Layton demanded to join the group. Several other defectors voiced their suspicions about his motives, but Ryan and Speier allowed him to join. Before the Cessna took off, Layton produced a gun he had hidden under his poncho, and started shooting at the passengers. He wounded Monica Bagby and Vernon Gosney, and he tried to kill Dale Parks, who disarmed Layton.

At about this time, a tractor appeared at the airstrip, driven by members of Jones' armed guards (the "Red Brigade"). The tractor got within about 30 feet of the Otter, and then the Jones loyalists opened fire while circling the plane on foot and apparently in military-style formation. A few seconds of the shooting were captured on camera by NBC cameraman Bob Brown, whose camera kept rolling even as he was shot dead. Congressman Ryan, news team members Brown, Robinson, and Harris, and 44-year-old Jonestown defector Patricia Parks were killed in the few minutes of shooting. Jackie Speier was injured by five bullets. Steve Sung and Anthony Katsaris also were badly wounded. The Cessna was able to take off and fly to Georgetown, leaving behind the gunfire-damaged Otter (whose pilot and copilot also flew out in the Cessna).

Journalist Tim Reiterman, who had stayed at the airstrip, photographed the aftermath of the violence. Dwyer assumed leadership at the scene, and at his recommendation, Layton was arrested by Guyanese state police. Dwyer was hit by one bullet, in his buttock, at the airstrip.

It took several hours before the 10 wounded and others in their party gathered themselves together and spent the night in a café, with the more seriously wounded in a small tent on the airfield. A Guyananese government plane came to evacuate the wounded the following morning.

Five teenage members of the Parks and Bogue families, with one boyfriend, were told by defector Gerald Parks after the shooting to hide in the adjacent jungle until help arrived and their safety was assured. They went into the jungle but got lost for three days, nearly dying, until found by Guyanese soldiers.

Many Guyanese soldiers and civilians were looking on from alongside the airstrip as the shooting transpired. None of them attempted to intervene, and none of them came forward later to offer witness testimony. To date none of them has even been identified.

Mass murder-and-suicide

Jim Jones, the coward, the evil that he was, created a mass suicide back in the yer of 1978. Jim Jones being the son of Satan himslf was addicted to not only drugs, but to also fornication with underage girls - the youngest being just 7 years old. About 45 minutes after the Port Kaituma shootings (which is how long it took to travel the rough 6-mile road back to Jonestown) the airstrip shooters arrived back in Jonestown, and one eyewitness (Tim Carter, a Vietnam war veteran) recalled them having the "thousand-yard stare" of weary soldiers. The shooters numbered about nine, and their identities are not all certainly known, but most sources agree that Joe Wilson (Jones’ head of security), Thomas Kice Sr., and Albert Touchette were among them.

Jim Jones called a meeting under the pavilion as night fell. It was announced as another "white night", the fake-suicide which had been rehearsed before. But this time, Dr. Laurence Schacht, Nurse Annie Moore, and others mixed cyanide and Valium into a metal vat full of grape Flavor Aid. Before the murder-suicide got under way, Jones argued with two Temple members who actively resisted his decision for the whole congregation to die. One was 60-year-old Christine Miller, who repeatedly suggested alternative strategies, such as taking all the children to Cuba along with Jones himself. Another dissenter was almost certainly Jones’ own wife, Marceline.

Jones assured his followers that CIA-sponsored mercenaries or Guyanese soldiers would soon emerge from the jungle and slaughter all of them. Loyalists with crossbows and firearms formed a circle around the area where the poison was being injected into youngsters’ mouths with plastic syringes and distributed in paper cups. When families each assembled and arrived at the head of the line, the children were poisoned first. This is often suggested to be the reason so many adults continued toward their own deaths with little or no resistance. Stephan Jones, surviving son of Jim Jones, asserted afterward that, to many, it would have been impossible to carry on living after seeing so many children die. According to eyewitness Stanley Clayton, the families were then escorted away from where the poison vat was located, and told to lie down together along walkways and areas out of the close vision of the people who were still being dosed, because anyone present who believed that this was just another rehearsal would not believe so any longer after seeing people convulsing and dying. The poison was extremely effective, causing death within about five minutes to everyone who drank it.

Four people, who were intended to be poisoned, decided not to cooperate and survived. They were 76-year-old Hyacinth Thrash, who hid under her bed when nurses were going through her dormitory with cups of poison; 36-year-old Odell Rhodes, a Jonestown teacher and craftsman who hid; 25-year-old Stanley Clayton, who also hid; and 79-year-old Grover Davis, who was hard of hearing and so missing the announcement on the loudspeaker to assemble, lay down in a ditch and pretended to be dead. Thrash and Davis were recovered by Guyanese soldiers on Sunday morning. Rhodes and Clayton left for Port Kaituma.

Five people were given assignments by Jones or his staff that did not call them to their deaths. His two lawyers, Charles Garry and Mark Lane, who were not Temple members, were escorted to "the East House", which was used to accommodate visitors, far away from the pavilion. Tim Carter (30), Mike Carter (20), and Mike Prokes (31) were given luggage containing money and documents, which they were told to deliver to Guyana’s Soviet Embassy.

Lawyers Garry and Lane walked through the jungle during the night and eventually made it to Port Kaituma. While in the jungle near the settlement, they heard cheering, then gunshots.

This observation concurs with the testimony of Clayton, who heard the same sounds as he was sneaking back into Jonestown to retrieve his passport and to snatch a bottle of Jones’ cold beer. Clayton and Rhodes (who were not aware of each other’s movements) both looked for the home of one Guyanese family they knew, which was near Jonestown on the way to Port Kaituma. Only Clayton found the house in the dark, while Rhodes continued on to Port Kaituma. Clayton told the Guyanese family what had just happened, but he was not taken seriously. Clayton then suggested that the people of Jonestown no longer needed their tools and equipment. The father of the Guyanese family then went to Jonestown as Clayton slept. He returned in the morning with a disturbed look on his face, according to Clayton.

Evidently, Jones and his immediate staff, after having organized and supervised the "white night", came together and killed themselves and each other with handguns, after giving a final cheer. However, the only two people who were killed by gunfire [citation needed] were Jones and Annie Moore; it is unknown whether Jones shot himself or was shot by someone else, and Moore left a suicide note before shooting herself inside Jones' cabin. Recovery workers entering Jones' cabin found the door blocked by her body. Other non-suicides appeared to have had the poisonous brew injected into them between the shoulder blades by unknown persons. Moore was one of only seven people (out of 913) to have an autopsy performed on her, at the insistence of her family. Her sister Rebecca Moore, who was not a Peoples Temple member, has since 1999 hosted a website about the disaster.[13]

Moore's note in part stated: "I am at a point right now so embittered against the world that I don't know why I am writing this. Someone who finds it will believe I am crazy or believe in the barbed wire that does NOT exist in Jonestown." Another last note was left, unsigned, either by Richard Tropp or by Marceline Jones.

The Carter brothers and Mike Prokes were put into protective custody in Port Kaituma, but released in Georgetown. Rhodes, Clayton, and the two lawyers were also brought to Georgetown. Larry Layton, who had opened fire aboard the Cessna, was extradited to the USA and put in prison; he is the only person ever to have been held responsible for the events at Jonestown. He was paroled in 2002.

There is no evidence indicating that mercenaries or Guyanese soldiers, or indeed anyone else, were present in the jungle surrounding Jonestown on the evening of the mass suicide/murders, as Jones told his followers.

Aftermath

Early reports claimed that about 400 Temple members had been killed, and the remainder had fled into the jungle. This death count was revised over the next week until the final total of more than 900 was reached.

The sheer scale of the event, as well as Jones' socialist leanings, led some to suggest CIA involvement, however, in 1980 the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence investigated the Jonestown mass suicide and announced that there was no evidence of CIA involvement at Jonestown. Yet, most government documents relating to Jonestown remain classified.[14][15]

According to various press reports,[16] surviving Temple members in the U.S. announced their fears of being targeted by a "hit squad" of Jonestown survivors; similarly, in 1979, the Associated Press reported[17] the claim of a U.S. Congressional aide that there were ".. 120 white, brainwashed assassins out from Jonestown awaiting the trigger word to pick up their hit."

The legacy of Jonestown

Jonestown itself became a "ghost town" after 1978 and was mostly destroyed by a fire in the mid-1980s, after which the ruins were left to decay. Today there remains little to mark the site where one of the most notorious mass suicides in history occurred. The buildings and grounds were not taken over by local Guyanese people because of the social stigma associated with the murders and suicides.

The Jonestown deaths were among several incidents from about 1978 to 1982 that greatly undermined cults or "new religious movements" in the United States.

See also

References

  1. ^ "What happened to Jonestown". Retrieved 2007-03-08.
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference cnn_jones was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b The Religious Movements Homepage Project: Peoples Temple
  4. ^ On This Day: 18 November, 1978: Mass suicide leaves 900 dead. BBC webpage. Accessed on 9 April, 2007.
  5. ^ a b Timeline: The Life and Death of Jim Jones. PBS website. Accessed on 9 April, 2007.
  6. ^ Layton, Deborah (1998). Seductive Poison. New York: Doubleday. pp. 194–5. 0-385-48983-8. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  7. ^ New York Times, Dec 29, 1978
  8. ^ An Analysis of Jonestown. Accessed 9 April, 2007.
  9. ^ New York Times Nov 29, 1978
  10. ^ Layton, Deborah (1978). "Seductive Poison: Affidavit of Deborah Layton Blakey". Deborah Layton. Retrieved 2006-08-12.
  11. ^ Hunter, Kathy: "Seven Mysterious Deaths," Ukiah Press-Democrat, 1978
  12. ^ The History Channel, Jonestown: Paradise Lost. This documentary details the last few days before the Jonestown tragedy, with special concentration on these insider perspectives.
  13. ^ "Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple". Retrieved 2007-03-08.
  14. ^ Richardson, James. "Jonestown 25 Years Later: Why All The Secrecy?". Retrieved 2007-03-08.
  15. ^ Taylor, Michael; Lattin, Don (1998). "Most Peoples Temple Documents Still Sealed". San Francisco Examiner. Retrieved 2007-03-08.
  16. ^ Los Angeles Times, Dec 18, 1978; New York Times, December 14, 1978
  17. ^ Associated Press, May 19, 1979

Bibliography

  • Renardo Barden,. Cults (Troubled Society series). Rourke Pub Group. ISBN 0-86593-070-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  • Sean Dolan (2000). Everything you need to know about cults. New York: Rosen Pub. Group. ISBN 0-8239-3230-3.
  • Jack Sargeant, (2002). Death Cults: Murder, Mayhem and Mind Control (True Crime Series). Virgin Publishing. ISBN 0-7535-0644-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  • Rebecca Moore (1985). A sympathetic history of Jonestown: the Moore family involvement in Peoples Temple. Lewiston: E. Mellen Press. ISBN 0-88946-860-5.
  • Charles A. Krause; with exclusive material by Laurence M. Stern, Richard Harwood and the staff of The Washington Post; with 16 pages of on-the-scene photos. and commentary by Frank Johnston (1978). Guyana massacre: the eyewitness account. [New York]: Berkley Pub. Corp. ISBN 0-425-04234-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  • Shiva Naipaul (1982). Journey to nowhere: a New World tragedy. Harmondsworth [Eng.]: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-006189-4. (published in the UK as Black and White) Shiva Naipaul
  • Phil Kerns, (1978). People's Temple, People's Tomb. Logos Associates. ISBN 0-88270-363-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  • Raven: The Untold Story of the Reverend Jim Jones and His People by Tim Reiterman with John Jacobs
  • by Marshall Kilduff and Ron Javers (1978). The suicide cult: the inside story of the Peoples Temple sect and the massacre in Guyana. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-12920-1.
  • Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple a film by Stanley Nelson
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