Peoples Temple

Peoples Temple began as an independent Pentecostal church founded by Jim and Marceline Jones in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1955 and became affiliated with the Disciples of Christ denomination in 1960. In 1965, the church moved to Northern California with approximately a hundred members. In 1970, Peoples Temple began holding services and recruiting thousands of members from African American communities in San Francisco and Los Angeles and later opened large churches in both cities. In 1973, the church initiated plans for an agricultural and rural development mission in Guyana, South America that became known as Jonestown. In 1977, media coverage of Peoples Temple practices and political activities led the government to investigate the church's financial and social welfare programs. That same year, members began to relocate to Jonestown, and by 1978 over 1000 resided there. In November 1978, responding to claims of mistreatment of members in Jonestown, Rep. Leo Ryan, accompanied by a small group, went to Guyana to survey the conditions. During the visit, 17 members chose to leave with Ryan. On November 18, when boarding their planes, they were shot by Peoples Temple members, killing Ryan, three journalists, and a Peoples Temple member. Later that same day, over 900 members of Peoples Temple died in Jonestown of cyanide poisoning. Survivors included eighty members in Guyana and hundreds of members in the U.S, many in California. In 1983, Peoples Temple was dissolved and its records were deposited at the California Historical Society. Immediately after the deaths, Peoples Temple assets were frozen and placed under the supervision of the San Francisco Superior Court. Over $1.8 billion in claims were filed against the Peoples Temple estate. After overseeing the burial of hundreds of unclaimed and unidentified bodies from Jonestown, the court recovered and disbursed $13 million in assets. In 1983, Peoples Temple was dissolved and its records were deposited at the California Historical Society.

From the description of Photographs from Peoples Temple records, 1959-1982 (bulk 1972-1978). (California Historical Society). WorldCat record id: 262559612

Peoples Temple began as an independent Pentecostal church founded by Jim and Marceline Jones in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1955 and became affiliated with the Disciples of Christ denomination in 1960. In 1965, the church moved to Northern California with approximately one hundred members. In 1970, Peoples Temple began holding services and recruiting thousands of members from African American communities in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and later opened large churches in both cities. In 1973, the church initiated plans for an agricultural and rural development mission in Guyana, South America, that became known as Jonestown. In 1977, media coverage of Peoples Temple practices and political activities led the government to investigate the church's financial and social welfare programs. That same year, members began to relocate to Jonestown; by 1978, over 1000 people resided there. In November 1978, responding to claims of mistreatment at Jonestown, Rep. Leo Ryan, accompanied by a small group, went to Guyana to survey the conditions. During the visit, 17 Peoples Temple members chose to leave with Ryan. On November 18, Peoples Temple members followed Ryan's delegation to an airstrip in Port Kaituma, where they shot at the departing group, killing Ryan, three journalists, and a Peoples Temple member. Later that same day, over 900 members of Peoples Temple died in Jonestown of cyanide poisoning. Survivors included eighty members in Guyana and hundreds of members in the United States, many in California.

Immediately after the deaths, Peoples Temple assets were frozen and placed under the supervision of the San Francisco Superior Court. Over $1.8 billion in claims were filed against the Peoples Temple estate. After overseeing the burial of hundreds of unclaimed and unidentified bodies from Jonestown, the court recovered and disbursed $13 million in assets. In 1983, Peoples Temple was dissolved and its records were deposited at the California Historical Society.

From the description of Peoples Temple records, 1922-1984. (California Historical Society). WorldCat record id: 263440492

History of Peoples Temple

Peoples Temple began as a church founded by Jim and Marceline Jones and a small group of parishioners in Indianapolis in 1955. As pastor, Jim Jones preached to a racially-integrated congregation during Pentecostal-based services that included healings and sermons on integration and class conflicts. Peoples Temple conducted food drives; opened a "free restaurant" that served thousands of meals to the city's poor in the early 1960s; operated nursing homes; and hosted weekly television and radio programs featuring their integrated choir. The church became well known in the Indianapolis press for the members' integration activities and for their assertions of their pastor's gifts as a healer. The church became affiliated with the Disciples of Christ denomination in 1960.

In the summer of 1965, the Jones family and approximately one hundred Peoples Temple members relocated to Redwood Valley, a rural community eight miles north of Ukiah in Mendocino County. Peoples Temple conducted church services and meetings in rented and borrowed spaces until 1969 when they finished building their own church with a swimming pool, an animal shelter, gardens, and a community kitchen. By this time, the church's membership had grown to three hundred.

In 1970, Jim Jones began to preach in cities throughout California. Recruiting drives in African American communities in San Francisco and Los Angeles increased Peoples Temple membership to over twenty-five hundred by 1973. Some members lived in communal housing and worked full time for Peoples Temple. Others contributed significant portions of their income and property to the church. The church's operations included real estate management; home care facilities for seniors and youths; publishing and bookkeeping services; mail order services; and maintenance of a fleet of buses to transport members to services throughout the state and across the country. Tens of thousands of people, including politicians and members of other congregations, attended Peoples Temple services between 1970 and 1977.

The leadership of Peoples Temple voted to establish an agricultural and rural development mission in Guyana, South America in the fall of 1973. Over the next two years, members traveled to Guyana to scout a location for the mission; establish a residence in Georgetown, the capital of Guyana; clear the land; and begin construction at the site. The building plans for the community which became known as Jonestown included farm buildings, a large communal kitchen, medical facilities, schools, dormitory-style housing, small cabins, a day care center and a large open-air pavilion that became the community's central meeting place.

By 1976, Peoples Temple had moved its headquarters from Redwood Valley to San Francisco and had become involved in citywide electoral politics. They published their own newspaper, Peoples Forum ; staged rallies and events for local and national political figures; and were vocal in their support of causes such as freedom of the press, affirmative action, and gay rights. In the fall of 1976, recently elected Mayor George Moscone appointed Jim Jones to the San Francisco Housing Authority. Jones served as its chairman until he left for Guyana the following year.

In 1977, former members and relatives organized a group called the Concerned Relatives to protest Jones's treatment of church members. Child custody issues and living conditions in Jonestown were at the center of the conflict between Peoples Temple and the Concerned Relatives. Both sides filed lawsuits, sought public support through the media, and appealed to government officials for protection. Media coverage of Peoples Temple practices and political activities led the government to investigate the church's financial and social welfare programs. Peoples Temple began to close many of their businesses, sell their properties, and relocate hundreds of their members to Guyana.

In response to issues raised by the media and former members, California Congressman Leo Ryan scheduled a trip to Jonestown in November 1978. By this time, more than a thousand Peoples Temple members were living in Guyana. His staff, members of Concerned Relatives, Embassy officials, and journalists accompanied Ryan on an overnight visit to Jonestown. As the congressional party left for the airstrip at Port Kaituma, sixteen disaffected Jonestown residents accompanied Ryan. As the group boarded two small airplanes at the airstrip, Peoples Temple members drove up on tractors and began shooting. They killed Ryan, three journalists, and a Peoples Temple member. That same day, November 18, 1978, more than nine hundred people died, most by cyanide poisoning, in Jonestown; four other members died in Georgetown.

More than eighty Peoples Temple members survived the deaths in Guyana: people who lived through the airstrip shootings; Jonestown residents who left the community before and during the poisonings; and members who were in Georgetown and on boats. Hundreds of Peoples Temple members had remained in the U.S., many of them in California.

After the deaths, Peoples Temple members in San Francisco provided the government with records to assist in identifying the dead. All Peoples Temple assets were frozen and placed under court supervision and the process of dissolving Peoples Temple began. The court oversaw the burial of hundreds of unclaimed and unidentified bodies from Jonestown. The court also set up a system to handle what would ultimately total $1.8 billion in claims filed against the Peoples Temple estate. Claims were filed by the governments of Guyana and the United States; people injured at the airstrip; relatives of the deceased; and people who had turned over property to Peoples Temple. In 1979 and 1980, Congress held hearings on the death of Congressman Ryan and on cult phenomenon in the U.S.

By 1983, the court recovered and disbursed over $13 million, including interest, in assets recovered from cash found in the U.S. and Guyana, from international accounts found in Panama, Caracas, Grenada and other countries, and from the sale of Peoples Temple properties and assets. In June 1983, the court approved the transfer of the records of Peoples Temple to the California Historical Society.

Summary of Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ v. the Attorney General of California

After November 18, 1978, it was necessary to begin the process of winding-up the financial affairs of Peoples Temple. Generally, the legal procedure to dissolve a charitable organization requires the board members of the organization to initiate a lawsuit naming the State Attorney General as respondent. The surviving board members of Peoples Temple filed the original petition for the case Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ v. the Attorney General of California through the Temple's attorney Charles Garry. On January 26, 1979 Superior Court Judge Ira Brown filed a minute order to appoint Robert H. Fabian as receiver, an action that followed a series of rulings by Brown to freeze the remaining assets of Peoples Temple and place them under court supervision.

Fabian took the oath on February 1, 1979. The duties of the receiver were to locate and liquidate Peoples Temple assets and process the many claims brought against the Temple. As receiver, Fabian's job was to recommend to the court the payment or rejection of claims. Judge Brown had authority to approve the expenditure of any funds necessary for Fabian to complete this task. One of Fabian's first actions was to recommend the law firm Bronson, Bronson, and McKinnon to act as his counsel.

Although the eventual worth of Peoples Temple was determined to be approximately $10 million, the receiver initially located only $750,000 in the form of cash, property, and other assets in California. The sale of the church at 1859 Geary Boulevard in San Francisco brought $300,000, and a forty-acre ranch in Mendocino County and another property sold for $226,000. Fabian organized an auction to sell assets found at the Geary Boulevard church and other locations, including forty-two tons of wheat that was ready to ship to Jonestown in Guyana, motorcycles, cars, and sailboats. The auction netted $75,000.

The remainder of the money was located in a complicated network of accounts, under various names, that took Fabian and his staff to six countries. The task was difficult since no surviving person knew the whereabouts of all the different accounts, and when they were discovered, Fabian had to convince the appropriate authorities to release the funds to his control. Two accounts were discovered in Panama and one each in Venezuala and Grenada. Further investigations found money to have at one time been in Switzerland as well. Finally, the Guyanese government sued Peoples Temple for damages, including the airplane that was sabotaged at the Port Kaituma airstrip. The assets of the Temple that were in Guyana were totaled and a compromise gave Peoples Temple 35% and the Guyanese government 65%, or about $1 million. The $10 million recovered was placed in interest-bearing accounts where it accrued nearly $3 million.

Claims against Peoples Temple numbered about 750, and consisted mainly of wrongful death and personal injury cases brought by relatives of deceased members and those injured at the airstrip. The total amount of claims came to $1.8 billion and included $66 million sought by the children of the late U.S. Representative Leo Ryan and $4.298 million in the case U.S.A. v. P.T., in which the federal government sought compensation for removing the bodies from Guyana, identifying them, and preparing them for shipment back to the United States and burial. After discovery it was found that the government had actually accrued expenses of only $2.8 million. The final payment was $1.6 million, although it was also decided that the government should honor the endorsed social security checks recovered in Jonestown. The federal government, however, exercised its authority to receive its payment before all other claimants.

The claims were studied, categorized and passed on to the court with recommendations. In addition to those who filed personal injury and wrongful death claims, other people claimed that they had been coerced out of property or that Peoples Temple owed them service debts. The receiver dismissed cases that lacked documentation and then applied standard actuarial tables, similar to those used by insurance companies, to make the awards. No legal challenge was made against the receiver's disbursement formula, which resulted in awards that represented approximately 60% of the original claims.

On March 22, 1983, four and a half years after the deaths in Guyana, Robert Fabian began writing claimant checks. Payments ranged from $29 to $360,000. Fabian and his staff received $480,000 and Bronson, Bronson, and McKinnon received about $1 million for overseeing the receivership.

Final wind-up consisted of delivering the records of Peoples Temple and the receivership operation to the California Historical Society, along with a check for $20,000, taken from the assets, for processing the records. In accordance with California state law that requires remaining assets to be given to charitable organizations, approximately $10,000 was given to the Board of Trustees of the Glide Foundation, and $10,000 to the San Francisco Council of Churches for its role in comforting relatives.

From the guide to the Peoples Temple records, 1922-1984, (California Historical Society)

Historical Note

In 1954, a young preacher in Indianapolis, Indiana named James Warren Jones left his position with the Laurel Street Tabernacle of the Assemblies of God Pentecostal Church over the church's inability to accept racial integration. Together with other disaffected congregants, Jones founded a new, more open church named the Wings of Deliverance Church. As the congregation grew and gained mainline church affiliation, it adopted a new name: Peoples Temple Christian Church. Peoples Temple emphasized the need for racial integration and made social welfare projects its primary focus. As its views expanded, the congregation met much resistance from the public and thus was forced to move the location of the church numerous times. Eventually, Jones decided to leave Indiana. He chose the rural area of Redwood Valley in northern California as his destination after reading an article in Esquire magazine, which described it as one of the few places in the world that would survive a nuclear holocaust.

Redwood Valley and its nearest town, Ukiah, were idyllic, but they weren't perfect. Almost all-white, the area had difficulties of its own with a multiracial church. Jones acquired church facilities in San Francisco and Los Angeles, urban areas that were both more accepting of the Temples members and where the social services that the church offered were more needed. Jones eventually moved the main headquarters of the church to San Francisco but continued to minister in all three locations, sometimes during the same weekend.

Jones's sense of mission was not complete, however. Haunted by what he perceived as the inevitability of Americas nuclear annihilation and confronted on a daily basis with the inescapable racism he saw in American society, Jones looked elsewhere to build a utopian society which he referred to as the Promised Land. Its location was in Guyana, an English-speaking, black-governed socialist democracy on the north coast of South America. Beginning in 1974, Temple pioneers worked to construct the community formally known as the Peoples Temple Agricultural Mission, but better known as Jonestown, and leaders of the group planned for a slow, steady migration of Temple members to begin in mid-1977.

About that time, however, the Temple began receiving unfavorable news coverage generated by some of its apostates. The same disaffected members also filed lawsuits to reclaim property which they had previously donated to the church, as well as court petitions for custody of their relatives still in the church. Their allegations, and the press coverage of them, led to investigations by various federal and state government agencies, including ones that threatened the church's very existence, such as Internal Revenue Service. Jones response was to speed up the migration to the Promised Land. What once was planned to extend over many months was reduced to a six-week period in late summer 1977.

Jones problems didn't end there, though. The same Temple defectors, now united in an organization called Concerned Relatives, continued to call for government investigations and to press for decisions by American courts on their petitions. They also lobbied for congressional action, bringing their pleas to the attention of Leo Ryan (D-CA), the representative of several Temple members and families.

Jones problems didn't end there, though. The same Temple defectors, now united in an organization called Concerned Relatives, continued to call for government investigations and to press for decisions by American courts on their petitions. They also lobbied for congressional action, bringing their pleas to the attention of Leo Ryan (D-CA), the representative of several Temple members and families.

Congressman Ryan agreed to conduct a neutral, fact-finding mission in November of 1978 to assess the situation at Jonestown, but he took a number of Jones antagonists with him. Jones immediate inclination was to decline permission for a visit to the community, but his lawyers prevailed upon him to relent, and the Ryan party arrived in Jonestown on November 17. The visit seemed to go well on the first day, but on the second day, a number of Jonestown residents, unhappy with living and working conditions in the Promised Land, asked to leave with Ryan.

The events of the next few hours remain shrouded in mystery. What is known is that the Ryan party, now enlarged by 16 defectors, returned to a jungle airstrip at Port Kaituma, about five miles from Jonestown, in preparation to return to Guyana's capital of Georgetown and then back to the U.S. Shortly after their arrival at the airstrip, a tractor towing a flatbed trailer pulled up at the other end of the airstrip, and men on the trailer started firing weapons. A few minutes later, Ryan and four others were dead, and a half dozen more were wounded.

Meanwhile, back in Jonestown, Jones proclaimed that all was lost, and that when Guyanese military forces soon invaded the community, they shouldn't find anyone alive. According to a tape made during the final hours, Jones warned that they would be tortured, and that it was better to die by their own hands. Some of the few survivors deny that the deaths were by suicide, and point to the presence of guards and the injection marks found on many of the bodies. Whatever the circumstances, the results shocked the world: 909 dead at Jonestown, five dead at Port Kaituma, and four Temple members dead in Georgetown.

From the guide to the Peoples Temple Collection, 1972-1990, (Special Collections & University Archives: Finding Aid Database)

Organizational History

Peoples Temple began as a church founded by Jim and Marceline Jones and a small group of parishioners in Indianapolis in 1955. As pastor, Jim Jones preached to a racially-integrated congregation during Pentecostal-based services that included healings and sermons on integration and class conflicts. Peoples Temple conducted food drives; opened a "free restaurant" that served thousands of meals to the city's poor in the early 1960s; operated nursing homes; and hosted weekly television and radio programs featuring their integrated choir. The church became well known in the Indianapolis press for the members' integration activities and for their assertions of their pastor's gifts as a healer. The church became affiliated with the Disciples of Christ denomination in 1960.

In the summer of 1965, the Jones family and approximately one hundred Peoples Temple members relocated to Redwood Valley, a rural community eight miles north of Ukiah in Mendocino County. Peoples Temple conducted church services and meetings in rented and borrowed spaces until 1969 when they finished building their own church with a swimming pool, an animal shelter, gardens, and a community kitchen. By this time, the church's membership had grown to three hundred.

In 1970, Jim Jones began to preach in cities throughout California. Recruiting drives in African American communities in San Francisco and Los Angeles increased Peoples Temple membership to over twenty-five hundred by 1973. Some members lived in communal housing and worked full time for Peoples Temple. Others contributed significant portions of their income and property to the church. The church's operations included real estate management; home care facilities for seniors and youths; publishing and bookkeeping services; mail order services; and maintenance of a fleet of buses to transport members to services throughout the state and across the country. Tens of thousands of people, including politicians and members of other congregations, attended Peoples Temple services between 1970 and 1977.

The leadership of Peoples Temple voted to establish an agricultural and rural development mission in Guyana, South America in the fall of 1973. Over the next two years, members traveled to Guyana to scout a location for the mission; establish a residence in Georgetown, the capital of Guyana; clear the land; and begin construction at the site. The building plans for the community which became known as Jonestown included farm buildings, a large communal kitchen, medical facilities, schools, dormitory-style housing, small cabins, a day care center and a large open-air pavilion that became the community's central meeting place.

By 1976, Peoples Temple had moved its headquarters from Redwood Valley to San Francisco and had become involved in citywide electoral politics. They published their own newspaper, Peoples Forum ; staged rallies and events for local and national political figures; and were vocal in their support of causes such as freedom of the press, affirmative action, and gay rights. In the fall of 1976, recently elected Mayor George Moscone appointed Jim Jones to the San Francisco Housing Authority. Jones served as its chairman until he left for Guyana the following year.

In 1977, former members and relatives organized a group called the Concerned Relatives to protest Jones's treatment of church members. Child custody issues and living conditions in Jonestown were at the center of the conflict between Peoples Temple and the Concerned Relatives. Both sides filed lawsuits, sought public support through the media, and appealed to government officials for protection. Media coverage of Peoples Temple practices and political activities led the government to investigate the church's financial and social welfare programs. Peoples Temple began to close many of their businesses, sell their properties, and relocate hundreds of their members to Guyana.

In response to issues raised by the media and former members, California Congressman Leo Ryan scheduled a trip to Jonestown in November 1978. By this time, more than a thousand Peoples Temple members were living in Guyana. His staff, members of Concerned Relatives, Embassy officials, and journalists accompanied Ryan on an overnight visit to Jonestown. As the congressional party left for the airstrip at Port Kaituma, sixteen disaffected Jonestown residents accompanied Ryan. As the group boarded two small airplanes at the airstrip, Peoples Temple members drove up on tractors and began shooting. They killed Ryan, three journalists, and a Peoples Temple member. That same day, November 18, 1978, more than nine hundred people died, most by cyanide poisoning, in Jonestown; four other members died in Georgetown.

More than eighty Peoples Temple members survived the deaths in Guyana: people who lived through the airstrip shootings; Jonestown residents who left the community before and during the poisonings; and members who were in Georgetown and on boats. Hundreds of Peoples Temple members had remained in the U.S., many of them in California.

After the deaths, Peoples Temple members in San Francisco provided the government with records to assist in identifying the dead. All Peoples Temple assets were frozen and placed under court supervision and the process of dissolving Peoples Temple began. The court oversaw the burial of hundreds of unclaimed and unidentified bodies from Jonestown. The court also set up a system to handle what would ultimately total $1.8 billion in claims filed against the Peoples Temple estate. Claims were filed by the governments of Guyana and the United States; people injured at the airstrip; relatives of the deceased; and people who had turned over property to Peoples Temple. In 1979 and 1980, Congress held hearings on the death of Congressman Ryan and on cult phenomenon in the U.S.

By 1983, the court recovered and disbursed over $13 million, including interest, in assets recovered from cash found in the U.S. and Guyana, from international accounts found in Panama, Caracas, Grenada and other countries, and from the sale of Peoples Temple properties and assets. In June 1983, the court approved the transfer of the records of Peoples Temple to the California Historical Society.

From the guide to the Photographs from Peoples Temple records, 1959-1982, 1972-1978, (California Historical Society)