By the mid-1970s, the Peoples Temple had grown to include an estimated 20,000 members—enough that it began to flex its political muscle. It played a key role in electing San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. California Governor Jerry Brown attended a ceremonial dinner for Jones hosted by state Assemblyman Willie Brown, and First Lady Rosalyn Carter met several times with Jones.
But along with lots of positive publicity, the now-prominent Peoples Temple came under scrutiny for its financial dealings, staged faith healings and other suspicious activity. Reports of abusive practices abounded, including declarations that Jones was sexually molesting both female and male members of his flock.
Increasingly paranoid about threats to his church, Jones began to search for an escape. In 1974, the Peoples Temple acquired 3,800 acres of land in a remote inland area of Guyana, accessible only by boat or airplane.
Key Events and Timeline
By 1977, early settlers to the tract of land in Guyana, now known as Jonestown, had cleared out the jungle and erected a few cottages, schoolhouses and a large, open-air pavilion. Jones promoted the settlement as a “socialist paradise” where his congregation—68% of whom were Black—could live in racial harmony and peace.
But when about 1,000 members showed up later that year, the compound was thrown into chaos, and Jones demanded that people work 12-hour days of hard manual labor, followed by long evenings of speeches, sermons and other indoctrination tactics.
By this time, former members and concerned relatives were reporting abuse by Jones’s cult. One former member, Deborah Layton, described horrific conditions in Jonestown, including near-starvation food rations, imprisonment, sleep deprivation, suspicious deaths and “white night” drills in which members were called to the main pavilion for hours or days while Jones pretended the compound was under armed attack by perceived enemies.
Among the most chilling episodes to occur during “white nights” were simulated mass suicides, during which members were forced to line up and drink cups of fruit-flavored “poison,” which didn’t actually contain poison. According to Layton, Jones—now in failing health and abusing amphetamines, barbiturates and other drugs—referred to these as loyalty tests.
U.S. Representative Leo Ryan, whose district included San Francisco, traveled to Guyana in November 1978 with a small coterie of staffers, journalists and relatives of Peoples Temple members. On November 17, his fact-finding group landed at a nearby airstrip, then drove to Jonestown.
Jones greeted Ryan’s group with a reception, but their warm welcome grew chilly when a few members openly expressed a desire to leave Jonestown with Ryan. The visiting group was forced to spend the night in makeshift accommodations back at the airstrip because Jones refused to allow them to sleep in Jonestown.
On November 18, Ryan and his party returned to Jonestown, where they were decidedly unwelcome. Within a few hours, Ryan was nearly stabbed by an irate member of Peoples Temple. That afternoon, Ryan, his entire group and 15 cult members departed Jonestown.
Unbeknownst to the party, one of the defectors was in fact an ally of Jones’s: Larry Layton, the brother of Deborah Layton. When the group arrived at the airstrip, they began boarding two planes but were interrupted when a group of armed Jonestown loyalists showed up.
The armed men opened fire on the departing group, killing Ryan, three journalists and one Peoples Temple member. Inside one of the planes, Layton also began shooting people. During the ambush, in addition to the five people who were killed, several more were injured; survivors fled into the surrounding jungle.
Back at the Jonestown compound, the mood quickly darkened as Jones decided the murders would attract unwanted attention. He decided that the only course of action was to have everyone in Jonestown commit “revolutionary suicide.”
“We must die with some dignity,” Jones told his followers as vats of grape-flavored Flavor-Aid were mixed with cyanide at the Jonestown pavilion. The scene was recorded on audio tape. On the tape, some members could be heard screaming and crying. Armed guards surrounded the crowd to enforce Jones’s final command.
Infants and young children were among the first to die as their parents filled their mouths with poison from a syringe. Some members, mistakenly thinking this was just another “white night” drill, drank the poison without hesitation. Amid the panic and confusion, there is some evidence that many members resisted, especially as the bodies piled up around them, only to be killed by guards.
Aftermath
A total of 909 people died in the Jonestown massacre, including 276 children, while 87 members survived by hiding in the compound or escaping. It was the largest deliberate loss of U.S. civilian lives before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Jones’s body was discovered with a gunshot wound to the head; it remains unclear if he shot himself or was shot by another. The U.S. military was charged with the gruesome task of gathering and identifying the bodies found in Jonestown.
Layton was the only person charged in connection with the massacre. Convicted of injuring two people, he served 18 years in prison before being paroled in 2002.
Public Impact
The shocking news of the murders and mass suicide at Jonestown dominated headlines for weeks after the event. The remaining members of the Peoples Temple were besieged by reporters and scorned by members of the public. Before the end of 1978, the Peoples Temple declared bankruptcy and was dissolved.
The many politicians who had supported the Peoples Temple went to great pains to distance themselves from the cult, and the Disciples of Christ reconsidered their policy of openly admitting many churches and congregations to their organization without a process for expelling them.
The deaths sparked a global conversation about the role of religion in public life, and the power that cults—particularly those led by charismatic but unstable people—can have over their members.
The phrase “drink the Kool-Aid,” referring to the grape Flavor-Aid consumed at Jonestown, has entered the lexicon as a thoughtless acceptance of a false or empty belief system.
