Today, November 18, a heartbreaking incident took place in the forests of South America. 46 years ago, in 1978, about a thousand people committed mass suicide in a place in the middle of the forests of Guyana. All this happened at the instigation of a clergyman and a person who claimed to be a charismatic messiah.
On November 18, 1978, Peoples Temple founder Jim Jones along with hundreds of followers built their agricultural project in a remote area of the South American country of Guyana. He called this place Jones Town. In this same Jones Town, more than 900 people committed mass suicide.
Thousands of people were forced to drink poison.
Many of Jones’ followers voluntarily drank a poisoned drink. Many of them were also forced to do so at gunpoint. The final death toll in Jonestown that day was 909. A third of them were children.
The accused used to call himself a charismatic Christ
Jim Jones was a charismatic clergyman. Who founded the Peoples Temple, a Christian denomination in Indianapolis in the 1950s. He began campaigning against racism. Because of this, many African Americans began to join him. In this way he became thousands of followers. In 1965, Jim Jones moved to Northern California with his followers.
Many accusations were made against the charismatic cleric.
After 1971, he also left California and settled in San Francisco. In the 1970s, Jones was accused by the media of financial fraud, physical abuse of his followers, and child abuse. Amid growing criticism, Jones invited his congregation to accompany him to Guyana. He spoke of establishing a separate world there, based on agriculture. He told his followers that there they would find solace away from the hustle and bustle of the world.
A new city established in Guyana with thousands of followers
Jones promised his followers that they would build a socialist utopia. He said that three years ago a small group of his followers had gone to that part of the forest and were working there to build what would become Jonestown. After this, Jim Jones, along with hundreds of people, headed to a place in the middle of the forests of Guyana, which he called Jonestown.
Jonestown was not at all what Jim Jones had told people about. The people there had to work in the fields all day and if they questioned what Jones said, they were severely punished. Their passports were confiscated and letters sent home were censored.
Jones was mentally weak and a drug addict.
Jones, who at the time was mentally weak and had become a drug addict. He was convinced that the US government and others wanted to destroy him. He asked members of his group, People’s Temple, to participate in a mock suicide exercise at midnight.
In 1978, a group of relatives of Jones followers and former People’s Temple members convinced U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan, a Democrat from California, to visit Jonestown and investigate Jones’ activities.
The members of the delegation that came to investigate were murdered
On November 17, 1978, Ryan arrived in Jonestown with a group of reporters and other observers. The tour went well at first, but the next day, as Ryan’s delegation was about to leave, several people from Jonestown approached him and asked for his help in getting them out of the jungles of Guyana.
When Jones learned that some of his followers had spoken to the delegation, he was upset. After this, as Ryan and his delegation returned, Jones ordered an ambush on the airstrip. When they were trying to escape. In this incident, Ryan and four other people were killed while boarding their charter planes.
Thousands found cyanide and were forced to drink poison
Returning to Jonestown, Jones ordered everyone to gather in the main pavilion and carry out a revolutionary act. The youngest members of the People’s Temple were the first to be killed, when parents and nurses forced children to swallow a powerful mixture of cyanide, sedatives and powdered fruit juice. Then the adults lined up and drank the poison. During that time, Ryan’s armed guards had surrounded the pavilion.
When Guyanese authorities arrived at the Jonestown complex the next day, they found hundreds of bodies lying there. Many people held hands. Some people managed to escape into the jungle at the time of the suicide, while several dozen members of the People’s Temple survived because they were elsewhere in Guyana at the time.
Also read: When France was rocked by gunshots and explosions, such devastation occurred for the first time after World War II.
In 1975, religious sect leader and civil rights activist Rev. Jim Jones hinted at events to come. “I love socialism and I am willing to die to achieve it,” he said during a sermon at his People’s Temple church in San Francisco. If I do this, I will take a thousand people.
Just two years later, on November 18, 1978, those words became reality when more than 900 people, a third of whom were children, were murdered during the Jonestown massacre, one of the worst mass killings in the history of USA.
important events
November 18, 1727 – Maharaja Jai Singh II founds the city of Jaipur. The architect of the city was Vidyadhar Chakraborty of Bengal.
November 18, 1738: signing of the peace agreement between France and Austria.
November 18, 1833: signing of the Jonhoven Treaty between Holland and Belgium.
November 18, 1918: Latvia, a country in northeastern Europe, declares its independence from Russia.
November 18, 1948: Five hundred people drowned when the steamer ‘Narayani’ crashed near Patna, the capital of Bihar.
November 18, 1956: Morocco achieves independence.
