Jim Jones

Jim Jones (born May 13, 1931, Crete, near Lynn, Indiana, U.S.—died November 18, 1978, Jonestown, Guyana) was an American religious leader who founded Peoples Temple, a new religious movement that ended in 1978 when he led his followers to a mass suicide—the Jonestown massacre—that left more than 900 people dead. He began Peoples Temple in Indianapolis as an interracial congregation in the 1950s, later relocating the group to California and then leaving the United States for a commune in Guyana. He founded Peoples Temple on ideals of equality, socialism, and racial integration combined with strands of Pentecostal Christianity. In the 1960s and ’70s, Jones became increasingly paranoid and controlling of church members while making messianic claims and preparing his followers for mass suicide. The movement culminated in his orchestration of the Jonestown massacre and in his notoriety as a 20th-century cult leader.

Early life and formation

Jim Jones was born and raised in Indiana. As a child Jones became a regular churchgoer and explored multiple Christian denominations. He was initially raised near Lynn, Indiana, but in 1948, between his junior and senior years of high school, he moved with his mother to Richmond, Indiana. While in high school he worked as an orderly at Reid Memorial Hospital, and it was there that he met his wife, Marceline (née Baldwin), who was a student nurse. They married in 1949. He then briefly attended Indiana University but did not complete his studies. In his young adulthood he was also intrigued by communism, had an affiliation with the Communist Party USA, and harbored deep interests in Marxism, Maoism, and Stalinism. In 1952 Jones became aware of a renewed commitment within Methodism to pursue social justice and made the decision to become a minister.

He began his ministry career in 1952 as a student pastor at Somerset Methodist Church in Indianapolis. At that time racial segregation was common across the United States, and many church congregations tended to be all-white or all-Black. Jones attempted to integrate Somerset Methodist Church by inviting Black people to join, but his efforts were not well received. He was dismissed from his position in 1954. He then explored Pentecostal traditions, including a stint preaching at Laurel Street Tabernacle, an Assemblies of God Pentecostal church in Indianapolis. He was active in revivalist and Evangelical Christian movements, such as the Latter Rain revival, that developed in 20th-century American Protestantism.

Discover the fascinating events that shaped the world, straight from our editors.

SIGN UP

By clicking “Sign Up”, you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Britannica Quiz

Don’t Drink the Punch Quiz

Peoples Temple

In 1955 Jones and a group of like-minded followers split from Laurel Street Tabernacle, and he established his own church, Wings of Deliverance, which was soon known as Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church, typically abbreviated as Peoples Temple. In the late 1950s Jones had influential visits with George Baker (Father Divine), a prominent Black religious leader who led a socially progressive community that worshipped him and believed he had supernatural abilities—views that Jones would later cultivate in his own followers. Peoples Temple became affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in 1960. Jones completed his bachelor’s degree at Butler University in 1961, and he was ordained as a minister within the Disciples of Christ denomination in 1964.

Jones gained a reputation in the 1950s and ’60s as a charismatic leader of Peoples Temple. He claimed to have psychic powers such as the ability to foretell the future and to miraculously heal sick people. Many of these faith healings and displays of prescient knowledge were staged and orchestrated by Jones, who had detectives provide him with advance knowledge of audience members or used animal parts as mock cancers that he dramatically removed from attendees.

In his preaching Jones was a vocal proponent of racial integration. He and his wife adopted children of multiple backgrounds to create a multiracial “rainbow” family. During this time he was noted for his work with the homeless, and in the early 1960s he served as director of Indianapolis’s Human Rights Commission. He was active in desegregating public spaces such as restaurants, movie theaters, and hospitals. Peoples Temple operated a free restaurant and assisted with housing for older and ill people.

His ministry became more combative in the 1960s, and he held a tighter grip on his organization. He attacked the U.S. government as the Antichrist and compared himself to Jesus. Fearing a nuclear war, Jones relocated his church to northern California in 1965, first settling near Ukiah and then moving to San Francisco in 1971. He preached what by the 1970s he called “apostolic socialism,” a form of socialism and complete equality, which he declared was based on the life of the Apostles and which he thought would create heaven on earth. His social ideology was partly influenced by liberation theology popular among Roman Catholic clergy in Latin America at the time. Members of Peoples Temple under Jones’s leadership were supposed to live out this socialist utopian ideal through racial integration, shared possessions, and communal living.

Explore Britannica Premium!

The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.

SUBSCRIBE

Following the move to California, Jones, who adopted the name “the Prophet,” apparently became obsessed with the exercise of power. Although the movement was founded in Christianity, Jones began preaching an anti-Bible message, criticizing the Bible for justifying slavery, promoting violence, and subjugating women. In its place, Jones advanced a message focused on social issues and leaning toward humanism. In private messages Jones claimed to be an atheist or an agnostic who was using religion for political ends.

From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, Jones and Peoples Temple expanded its membership and footprint in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Local leaders joined the church, and he and Peoples Temple members were active in civic affairs. Peoples Temple became one of the leading Protestant congregations in northern California and began attracting more white liberal members. In 1975 Religion in Life magazine named Jones among the top 100 clergymen in the United States; in 1976 the Los Angeles Herald named him its humanitarian of the year. Although he was getting significant favorable media attention, Jones soon began to face various allegations, most notably that he was diverting the income of Peoples Temple members to his own use. Media reports also alleged his abuse of members and highlighted his fraudulent claims of supernatural abilities.

Amid the mounting accusations, in 1977 Jones and hundreds of his followers emigrated to Guyana in South America and set up an agricultural commune called Jonestown. Jones had leased the land in 1974, ostensibly to create a racially integrated socialist community far from American capitalism. He also continued to harbor eschatological beliefs about a coming nuclear threat. The majority of the inhabitants of Jonestown were African American. As ruler of the sect Jones confiscated passports and millions of dollars and manipulated his followers with threats of blackmail, beatings, and death. He also staged rehearsals for a ritual mass suicide.

Jonestown massacre

1 of 2

2 of 2

On November 14, 1978, U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan of California arrived in Guyana with a group of reporters at the behest of Concerned Relatives, a group of former Peoples Temple members and relatives of current members who had submitted disturbing reports that congregants were being held at Jonestown against their will. Four days later, as Ryan’s party and 14 defectors from the group prepared to depart from an airstrip near Jonestown, Jones ordered the group assassinated. However, only Ryan and four others (three reporters and one defector) were killed.

Fearing that those who had escaped might alert authorities, Jones activated his suicide plan, called the “White Night.” On November 18 he commanded his followers to drink cyanide-adulterated punch, an order that many of them obeyed but that some were coerced into obeying. Some, however, were injected with cyanide, many of them involuntarily. Jones died of a gunshot wound to the head, possibly self-inflicted. Guyanese troops reached Jonestown the next day, and the death toll of Peoples Temple followers was eventually placed at 913, including 304 people who were younger than 18. (Some death tolls include the five people killed at the airstrip, bringing the total number of deaths to 918.)

In addition to the people who died by murder and suicide in the Jonestown massacre, pets, farm animals, and even fish in nearby ponds were poisoned. The event was one of the largest mass deaths in American history, and it set off shock waves throughout the media and popular culture as people reckoned with images and reports of the mass suicide and Jones’s leadership of the movement.