Jonestown Massacre Research Paper

The Jonestown Massacre

Two decades ago a strange series of events ended in the deaths of more than 900 people in the middle of a South American jungle. Though thought of as a "massacre," what occurred at Jonestown on November 18, 1978, was to some extent done willingly. This made the mass suicide more disturbing. The Jonestown cult which was officially named “The People's Temple" was founded by a reverend named James Warren Jones, also known as Jim Jones, from Indianapolis in 1955. Jones, who didn’t have medical training, based his liberal ministry as a combination of religious and socialist viewpoints.

Jim Jones and his followers relocated to California in 1965, as the church grew into having large amounts of members joining and began campaigning their political ideas more actively. With an I.R.S. investigation and a great

Jones was born on May 13, 1931, in Crete, Indiana. He was the son of James Thurman Jones, who was a disabled World War I veteran, and Lynetta Jones, who worked a wide variety of jobs. Jones was left to himself as his mother was working most of the time and his father care for him much. For many years, one of his neighbors would take him to visit her church. Jones began his own religious investigation when he was around the age of 10. He would visit churches in the small town of Lynn he lived in with his family and became friends with a Pentecostal minister for some time. Jim Jones was a very observant child, Jones would take what he had learned at these different churches and started to preach to other children in his community. He was a very intelligent student, especially when it came to public speaking, but he had very few friends. His overpowering religious beliefs turned some people away from him, and he, in turn, disliked many usual teenage boy activities, such as sports, and told that he believed it to be sinful behavior, just as dancing or drinking (Jim Jones