Dateline: Secrets Uncovered: How Many People Died at Jonestown?
Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of suicide and murder. Reader discretion is advised.
An episode of Dateline: Secrets Uncovered, titled “An American Tragedy”, will air on Oxygen on Wednesday, April 3, 2024, at 8 p.m. ET. It will revolve around the Jonestown massacre which comprised of the mass murder-suicide that ended in the deaths of hundreds of the cult’s followers.
On November 18, 1978, Jim Jones, the founder and leader of the infamous cult Peoples Temple, led 908 of his followers to die in a mass murder-suicide. Many of the members at Jonestown ingested themselves with poison-laced fruit punch. Some followers also held others at gunpoint and forced them to do it. The children, who then comprised 304 of the total dead people, got killed first while the adults followed. Some children who were too young to drink from a cup. Some followers forcefully injected children with the liquid through their mouths, according to People magazine.
Jim Jones also died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound as part of what he called the “white night.” In the commune’s audio tapes, children and those who died by force can be heard wailing and crying. The number of survivors was very low. The Guardian reported about an elderly woman who was asleep through the event of the “revolutionary suicide” and woke up to find everyone in Jonestown dead. According to ABC News, roughly 90 of the followers survived.
Jim Jones started the Peoples Temple in the 1950s and moved it to San Francisco in the 1970s. In 1977, after a magazine reported that Jones had been inflicting physical and emotional abuse onto his followers, he leased a compound in South America from the Guyanese government and began a commune he called Jonestown there.
What happened at Jonestown?
According to FBI records, allegations around the happenings at Jonestown included that it was more of a slave camp than a religious center. Physical abuse, forced labor, imprisonments, substance abuse to control followers, suspicious deaths, and rehearsals for mass suicide. Relatives of those living in Jonestown then began reporting suspicions of human rights violations inside the commune.
The Peoples Temple also played repeated recordings of Jim Jones’ monologues. This happened as the members of the cult offered unpaid labor for long hours during the day. After that, they attended propaganda sessions. They taught that Jim Jones was a divine figure and a reincarnation of Buddha or Christ. The “Red Brigade” referred to an armed force in Jonestown. It ensured the cult was functioning in the way Jones wanted, the Guardian reported.
Jim Jones lured followers into Jonestown with the promise of a utopian society. He combined the concepts of social activism and religion to offer hope. He promoted ideas of racial and class equality, communism, and social consciousness. According to the History Channel, Jonestown was nothing like Jim Jones promised. The followers forcefully engaged in back-breaking work which kept them so busy that they barely had time to think or revolt.
Jim Jones also allegedly threatened the residents of Jonestown that the forests that surrounded the commune were full of wild animals that would eat them. He also threatened them with violence, forced drug ingestion, and imprisonment if they chose to leave. Armed guards also stood by the pavilion to ensure no one escaped when the followers died in the mass suicide in 1978.
“An American Tragedy” will air on Oxygen on April 3, 2024, at 8 p.m. ET.
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