Jonestown
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 religious cult under the leadership of Jim Jones. Jonestown became internationally infamous when, on November 18, 1978, a total of 918 people died at the settlement, at the nearby airstrip in Port Kaituma, and at a Temple-run building in Georgetown, Guyana's capital city. The name of the settlement became synonymous with the incidents at those locations.
A total of 909 individuals died in Jonestown itself, all but two from apparent cyanide poisoning, a significant number of whom were injected against their will. Jones and some Peoples Temple members referred to the act as a "revolutionary suicide" on an audio tape of the event, and in prior recorded discussions. The poisonings in Jonestown followed the murder of five others, including U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan, by Temple members at Port Kaituma, an act that Jones ordered. Four other Temple members committed murder-suicide in Georgetown at Jones' command.
Terms used to describe the deaths in Jonestown and Georgetown have evolved over time. Many contemporary media accounts after the events called the deaths a mass suicide. In contrast, later sources refer to the deaths with terms such as mass murder-suicide, a massacre, or mass murder. Seventy or more individuals at Jonestown were injected with poison, a third of the victims were minors, and armed guards had been ordered to shoot anyone who attempted to flee the settlement as Jones lobbied for suicide.
Origins
The Peoples Temple was formed by Jim Jones in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1955. The movement purported to practice what it called "apostolic socialism." In doing so, the Temple preached that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenmentsocialism." Jones had held an interest in Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Adolf Hitler from a young age, and would later frequently praise Stalin and Vladimir Lenin as heroes. He was also upset with persecution against the Communist Party USA. In the early 1960s, Jones visited Guyana – then a British colony – while on his way to establishing a short-lived Temple mission in Brazil.File:Peoples Temple logo.svg|right|thumb|200px|The logo of The Peoples Temple, led by Jim Jones, which controlled the commune until late 1978
File:Rev. Jim Jones, 1977 2.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Jim Jones, founder of The Peoples Temple
After Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views, the Temple moved to Redwood Valley, California, in 1965. In the early 1970s, the Temple opened other branches in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and would eventually move its headquarters to San Francisco.
With the move to San Francisco came increasing political involvement by the Temple and the high levels of approval they received from the local government. After the group's participation proved instrumental in the mayoral election victory of George Moscone in 1975, Moscone appointed Jones as the Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority. Increasing public support in California gave Jones access to several high-ranking political figures, including vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale and First Lady Rosalynn Carter. Guests at a large 1976 testimonial dinner for Jones included Governor Jerry Brown, Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally and California Assemblyman Willie Brown, among others.
Jonestown established
Selection and establishment of Guyanese land
In the fall of 1973, after critical newspaper articles by Lester Kinsolving and the defection of eight Temple members, Jones and Temple attorney Timothy Stoen prepared an "immediate action" contingency plan for responding to a police or media crackdown. The plan listed various options, including fleeing to Canada or to a "Caribbean missionary post" such as Barbados or Trinidad. For its Caribbean missionary post, the Temple quickly chose Guyana, conducting research on its economy and extradition treaties with the United States. In October 1973, the directors of the Temple passed a resolution to establish an agricultural mission there.The Temple chose Guyana, in part, because of the group's own socialist politics, which were moving further to the left during the selection process. Former Temple member Tim Carter stated that the reasons for choosing Guyana were the Temple's view of a perceived dominance of racism and multinational corporations in the U.S. government. According to Carter, the Temple concluded that Guyana, an English-speaking, socialist country with a government including prominent black leaders, would afford black Temple members a peaceful place to live.
Later, Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham stated that Jones may have "wanted to use cooperatives as the basis for the establishment of socialism, and maybe his idea of setting up a commune meshed with that." Jones thought that Guyana was small, poor and independent enough for him to easily obtain influence and official protection. He proved skillful in presenting the Guyanese government the benefits of allowing the Temple to establish a settlement in the country. One of the main tactics was to speak of the advantages of their American presence near Guyana's disputed border with Venezuela; this idea seemed promising to the Burnham government, who feared a military incursion by Venezuela.
In 1974, after traveling to an area of northwestern Guyana with Guyanese officials, Jones and the Temple negotiated a lease of over of land in the jungle located west of the Guyanese capital of Georgetown. In 1976, Guyana approved the lease. The site, located near the disputed border with Venezuela, was isolated and had soil of low fertility. The nearest body of water was away by muddy roads.
Jonestown before mass migration
As five hundred members began the construction of Jonestown, the Temple encouraged more to relocate to the settlement. Jones saw Jonestown as both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from media scrutiny. Jones reached an agreement to guarantee that Guyana would permit Temple members' mass migration. To do so, he stated that they were "skilled and progressive," showed off an envelope he claimed contained $500,000 and stated that he would invest most of the group's assets in Guyana. The relatively large number of immigrants to Guyana overwhelmed the government's small but stringent immigration infrastructure in a country where immigrants had outweighed locals. Guyanese immigration procedures were compromised to inhibit the departure of Temple defectors and curtail the visas of Temple opponents.Jonestown was held up as a benevolent communist community, with Jones stating: "I believe we're the purest communists there are." Jones' wife, Marceline, described Jonestown as "dedicated to live for socialism, total economic and racial and social equality. We are here living communally." Jones wanted to construct a model community and claimed that Burnham "couldn't rave enough about us, the wonderful things we do, the project, the model of socialism." He did not permit members to leave Jonestown without his express prior permission.
The Temple established offices in Georgetown and conducted numerous meetings with Burnham and other Guyanese officials. In 1976, Temple member Michael Prokes requested that Burnham receive Jones as a foreign dignitary along with other "high ranking U.S. officials." Jones traveled to Guyana with Dymally to meet with Burnham and Guyanese Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Willis. In that meeting, Dymally agreed to pass on the message to the U.S. State Department that Guyana wanted to keep an open door to cooperation with the U.S. He followed up that meeting with a letter to Burnham stating that Jones was "one of the finest human beings" and that Dymally was "tremendously impressed" by his visit to Jonestown.
Temple members took pains to stress their loyalty to Burnham's People's National Congress Party. One Temple member, Paula Adams, became romantically involved with Laurence "Bonny" Mann, Guyana's ambassador to the U.S. Jones bragged about other female Temple members he referred to as "public relations women" giving all for the cause in Jonestown. Burnham's wife Viola was also a strong advocate of the Temple.
Later, Burnham stated that Guyana allowed the Temple to operate in the manner it did on the references of Moscone, Mondale and Rosalynn Carter. He also said that, when Deputy Minister Ptolemy Reid traveled to Washington, D.C. in September 1977 to sign the Panama Canal Treaties, Mondale, by this point the U.S. Vice President, asked him, "How's Jim?", which indicated to Reid that Mondale had a personal interest in Jones' well-being.
Investigation and mass migration
In the summer of 1977, Jones and several hundred Temple members moved to Jonestown to escape building pressure from San Francisco media investigations. Jones left the same night that an editor at New West magazine read to him an article to be published by Marshall Kilduff detailing allegations of abuse by former Temple members. After the mass migration, Jonestown became overcrowded. Jonestown's population was slightly under 900 at its peak in 1978.Jonestown life after mass migration
Many members of the Temple believed that Guyana would be, as Jones promised, a paradise or utopia. After Jones arrived, however, Jonestown life significantly changed. Entertaining movies from Georgetown that the settlers had watched were mostly canceled in favor of Soviet propaganda shorts and documentaries on American social problems.Bureaucratic requirements after Jones' arrival sapped labor resources for other needs. Buildings fell into disrepair and weeds encroached on fields. School study and nighttime lectures for adults turned to Jones' discussions about revolution and enemies, with lessons focusing on Soviet alliances, Jones' crises and the purported "mercenaries" sent by Stoen, who had defected from the Temple and turned against the group.
For the first several months, Temple members worked six days a week, from approximately 6:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., with an hour for lunch. In mid-1978, after Jones' health deteriorated and his wife began managing more of Jonestown's operations, the work week was reduced to eight hours a day for five days a week. After the day's work ended, Temple members would attend several hours of activities in the settlement's central pavilion, including classes on socialism.
Jones compared Jonestown's work schedule to the North Korean system of eight hours of daily work followed by eight hours of study. This also comported with the Temple's practice of gradually subjecting its followers to sophisticated mind control and behavior modification techniques borrowed from Mao Zedong and Kim Il-sung. Jones would often read news and commentary, including items from Radio Moscow and Radio Havana, and was known to side with the Soviets over the Chinese during the Sino-Soviet split.
"Discussion" about current events often took the form of Jones interrogating individual followers about the implications and subtexts of a given news item, or delivering lengthy and often confused monologues on how to "read" certain events. In addition to Soviet documentaries, political thrillers such as The Parallax View, The Day of the Jackal, State of Siege and Z were repeatedly screened and minutely analyzed by Jones. Recordings of commune meetings show how livid and frustrated Jones would get when anyone did not find the films interesting or did not understand the message Jones was placing upon them.
Jonestown had a closed-circuit television system, but no one could view anything in the way of film or recorded TV, no matter how innocuous or seemingly politically neutral, without a Temple staffer present to "interpret" the material for the viewers. This invariably meant damning criticisms of perceived capitalist propaganda in Western material, and glowing praise for and highlighting of Marxist–Leninist messages in material from communist nations.
Jones's recorded readings of the news were part of the constant broadcasts over Jonestown's tower speakers, such that all members could hear them throughout the day and night. His news readings usually portrayed the U.S. as a "capitalist" and "imperialist" villain, while casting "socialist" leaders, such as Kim, Stalin and Robert Mugabe in a positive light.
Jonestown's primary means of communication with the outside world was a shortwave radio. All voice communications with San Francisco and Georgetown were transmitted using this radio, from mundane supply orders to confidential Temple business. The Federal Communications Commission cited the Temple for technical violations and for using amateur frequencies for commercial purposes. Because shortwave radio was Jonestown's only effective means of non-postal communication, the Temple felt that the FCC's threats to revoke its operators' licenses threatened Jonestown's existence.
Because it stood on poor soil, Jonestown was not self-sufficient and had to import large quantities of commodities such as wheat. Temple members lived in small communal houses, some with walls woven from Troolie palm, and ate meals that reportedly consisted of nothing more on some days than rice, beans, greens and occasionally meat, sauce and eggs. Despite having access to an estimated $26 million by late 1978, Jones also lived in a tiny communal house, though fewer people lived there than in other communal houses. His house reportedly held a small refrigerator containing, at times, eggs, meat, fruit, salads and soft drinks. Medical problems, such as severe diarrhea and high fevers, struck half the community in February 1978.
Although Jonestown contained no dedicated prison and no form of capital punishment, various forms of punishment were used against members considered to have disciplinary problems. Methods included imprisonment in a plywood box and forcing children to spend a night at the bottom of a well, sometimes upside-down. This "torture hole", along with beatings, became the subject of rumor among local Guyanese. For some members who attempted to escape, drugs such as Thorazine, sodium pentathol, chloral hydrate, Demerol and Valium were administered in an "extended care unit." Armed guards patrolled the area day and night to enforce Jonestown's rules.
Children were generally surrendered to communal care, and at times were only allowed to see their biological parents briefly at night. Jones was called "Father" or "Dad" by both adults and children. The community had a nursery at which thirty-three infants were born.
For a year, it appears the commune was run primarily through Social Security checks received by members. Up to $65,000 in monthly welfare payments from U.S. government agencies to Jonestown residents were signed over to the Temple. In 1978, officials from the U.S. embassy in Georgetown interviewed Social Security recipients on multiple occasions to make sure they were not being held against their will. None of the seventy-five people interviewed by the embassy stated that they were being held captive, were forced to sign over welfare checks or wanted to leave Jonestown.