Top 10 Most Heartbreaking Facts About Jonestown – Listverse
Everyone knows the basics of Jonestown. How cult leader Jim Jones tried to create a utopia in South America, and how it ended with the deaths of over 900 followers from cyanide-infused Flavor-Aid (no, it wasn’t Kool-Aid!)
Jones was the charismatic but deeply troubled leader of the Peoples Temple, a religious movement that tragically culminated in the infamous events in Jonestown. Born in 1931, Jones founded the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in the 1950s, espousing ideals of racial equality and social justice. However, as the movement grew, it became increasingly authoritarian and cult-like, eventually moving to Guyana, where Jonestown was established. The harrowing events at Jonestown remain one of the most shocking incidents in modern history, serving as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked power and the vulnerability of those seeking meaning and belonging.
But there is much more to this story, things that make this already devastating event even more horrific.
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10 No family contact for months
Jonestown was located in a completely remote area in the Guyanese jungle. The nearest major city was Georgetown, but it was impossible to get there without a vehicle or a brave guide. So civilians essentially couldn’t leave the compound without Jones’ express permission, which he rarely gave.
In addition, Jones limited contact with the outside world as much as possible. This extended to family and friends back home. The Concerned Relatives was founded by ex-members of the Temple and consisted mainly of relatives of people who had been brought to Jonestown. With no communication and no idea what was happening there, this group took matters into their own hands to try to bring their relatives back home.[1]
9 Jonestown Inspiration: Another Cult Mass Suicide 20 Years Later
Although not as famous as Jonestown, the group known as Heaven’s Gate has become synonymous with their infamous final act.
In 1997, 39 members of the religious group ate poisoned applesauce in an attempt to reach the “next level,” which they believed could be achieved through death. The group believed that after their death, a UFO would lift their souls to another plane of existence.
Heaven’s Gate, while still tragic, differs from Jonestown in several important ways, including the smaller size of the deaths. No one under the age of 18 was allowed to join the group, meaning all 39 deaths were adults. There is also no evidence that members were coerced or isolated in any way. Despite these contrasts, this mass suicide, just over twenty years after the largest in modern history, certainly brought cults and the topic of “hive ghosts” back into popular culture.[2]
8 Jones trained the members to trust him
Part of the reason the residents of Jonestown drank the poison so quickly was because Jones had primed them to believe that they would live.
Jones’ “White Nights” consisted of him insisting that it was time for the group to commit mass suicide. Almost everything that happened afterward closely follows the events of the last White Night. Members were forced to drink or eat things that Jones claimed would kill them while he preached about the end times. Obviously they weren’t poisoned. Jones would then announce that it had been a loyalty test that everyone who drank/ate had passed.
Therefore, many members of the Temple believed that the cyanide-laced Flavor-Aid was a placebo that would not harm them.[3]
7 One member tried to let Jones go
After Jones began ranting and raving about how the only way to save himself was through “revolutionary suicide,” some members of the Peoples Temple were brave enough to convince him that there were other ways out of the situation.
Christine Miller is the best-known example of this. She argued that an airlift to the Soviet Union could save the group, but Jones claimed this was unrealistic. Miller went on to say that if the group destroyed itself, the US government would have defeated them. On the other hand, if they were to live, there would always be hope. Jones responded that everyone eventually dies, and then “you run out of hope.”
Miller’s courage in the face of chaos and a corrupt leader reminds us of the importance of advocating for ourselves and standing up for others, even when it seems futile.[4]
6 Only 87 people survived
Almost none of the members of Peoples Temple in Jonestown survived the massacre. Yet some were fortunate enough to leave Guyana. Most of these survivors were outside the camp’s boundaries that day or lived in Georgetown (Guyana’s capital).
The most famous survivor to actually witness the massacre, Hyacinth Thrash, was likely hiding under her bed when she heard the sound of gunshots coming from the center of the city. Ignoring Jones’s call for a town meeting, Thrash fell asleep waiting and woke up a few hours later to a scene from a horror movie – her friends and family scattered around the grounds.
Interestingly, three of Jones’ sons survived because they were in Georgetown on that fateful day.[5]
5 Most residents were outcasts
Jonestown was founded as a utopian society composed of members of the Peoples Temple. Started by Reverend Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple was founded in 1954 to promote the ideals of Christianity and socialism, with a huge emphasis on racial equality.
During the tumultuous times of the Civil Rights Movement, many poorer Americans and people of color felt rejected by the government and mainstream churches. Jones’s Peoples Temple provided a place for marginalized groups to discuss religious and political issues in a safe environment with a leader who did not look down on them.
Because many members of the Church in America were minorities or social outcasts, they made up the majority of Jonestown’s residents. The fact that so many Jonestown victims were simply looking for a place where they felt welcome and equal to others makes the tragedy that much more devastating.[6]
4 They were close to salvation
Although many residents of Jonestown had voluntarily gone to the remote town in Guyana, no one was allowed to leave without the express permission of Jim Jones (armed guards were kept at the edge of the camo to prevent escapes). Due to his deep paranoia towards the government and outsiders, almost no one was allowed to leave the camp for any reason.
Naturally, most residents had family and friends back home in the United States who were wary of the lack of communication they had heard from Peoples Temple members. After several complaints and rumors about abuse and human rights violations from Jonestown, the group Concerned Relatives was founded.
It is the pressure from this group that finally convinced Congressman Leo Ryan to visit Guyana himself. Unfortunately, Ryan’s visit, which was intended to help the residents of Jonestown get back home, led to Jones’ order to shoot the congressman and others and begin the murder-suicide.[7]
3 Nearly a third of the victims were children
Jim Jones’ ideas about parenting were quite outside the box, and this is reflected in his ideologies and leadership. Rather than being raised by their parents, children were raised in communal care and sometimes only allowed to see their biological parents for a few minutes a day. Jones himself was seen as the ultimate father, as he was called “Daddy” by most members of the Temple, including adults.
Of the 918 deaths, at least 303 victims were under the age of 18. Jones was proud of his “Rainbow family,” referring to the non-white children he and his wife adopted. Jim Jr. (the ‘black son’) and Stephan (Jones’ only biological child), two of Jones’ sons, happened to be out of town that day at a basketball game and thus survived the massacre.[8]
2 It wasn’t really a suicide
Jonestown is often heralded as the largest murder-suicide in history, but this is not entirely true. The colloquial name for it is more accurate: The Jonestown Massacre. Although the event is technically a ‘suicide’, as the victims (usually) poisoned themselves, this was far from their own choice.
Terrified that U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan would return to America with a report stating that Jonestown was unsafe and would ruin his utopian plans, Jim Jones ordered a shooting that resulted in Ryan’s death.
At this point it was clear the jig was up. Once the US government learns that one of its congressmen has been murdered, Jonestown is over. In a fit of fear and paranoia, Jones declared that it would be better for everyone if they simply committed suicide rather than returning to the US. He claimed that “death is a million times preferable to ten more days of this life. If you knew what to expect… you’d be happy to transfer tonight.’
Members who refused to drink the cyanide-infused Flavor-Aid were shot or injected with the poison. Some tried to escape by running into the jungle, but Jones warned them that there was little chance of survival there and convinced most that it was easier to die here than in the wild.
With little choice, many historians argue that calling Jonestown a murder-suicide is incorrect and takes away from the tragedy that occurred that day. Dr. John Hall says, “But the adults in Jonestown lived in their own reality bubble, and eventually they had come to believe that their world was under siege from the outside.” With all the coercion, lies and brainwashing, the lines are certainly blurred.[9]
1 The children went first
Despite the controversy surrounding the adults at Jonestown, there is no doubt that the children were murdered at the compound. In addition to being too young to understand the weight of their own decisions, almost all of the children in Jonestown were forced to drink the poisoned drink by their parents and other loved ones. There are even reports of syringes being used to inject the poison into the mouths of babies as young as three months old.
Famously, Jonestown survivor Odell Rhodes, in recounting that fateful day, began by saying, “They started with the babies,” an ominous start to a terrifying ordeal.
Jones reportedly ordered the children to go first, to eliminate the adults’ hopes of escape or survival. He thought that once parents were forced to kill their own children, they would have an easier time taking the poison themselves.[1]