{"id":130691,"date":"2025-06-08T15:06:48","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T22:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=130691"},"modified":"2025-06-08T17:15:01","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T00:15:01","slug":"target-jim-jones-and-peoples-temple","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=130691","title":{"rendered":"Target: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple<\/em>: An Overview"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the spring of 1978, several members of Peoples Temple living in Jonestown collaborated in producing a book-length manuscript entitled Target: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple<\/em>. Although it began as an early history of the movement and \u2013 just as importantly \u2013 of Jim Jones, the work soon turned into a narrative account of the \u201cconspiracy\u201d which Temple members believed themselves to be the targets of.<\/p>\n

Although Richard Tropp was likely the chief author of the manuscript, more than one Jonestown resident contributed to the text. In an accompanying document, \u201cInstructions and Explanation Notes for Readers of this Manuscript,\u201d three editors-in-chief are listed: Harriet Tropp, Carolyn Layton, and Jim Jones. We cannot know for certain who exactly wrote which parts of the text, but the document reveals the ways in which the leadership group in Jonestown worked to evidence and construct the conspiracy against them.<\/p>\n

Within the manuscript, hand-written editorial notes are replete throughout the margins \u2013 in some cases, crossing out entire sentences, and in others, proposing simple changes of verbiage. In most cases, the intention to remove part of a paragraph is equally as revealing as the text which has been left behind. Seeking to refute the charges made against them by the Concerned Relatives and construct their own account of the conflict \u2013 as well as identifying its origins in the military-industrial-intelligence axis of the United States \u2013 the document remains a mixture of conspiracy theory, hero-worship, and character assassination.<\/p>\n

A deeper analysis of the manuscript and its related documents can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Target: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple<\/em><\/strong>
\nPDF<\/a><\/span>
\nText<\/a><\/span>
\nThe Tropp Manuscript: An Analysis<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 Connor Ashley Clayton<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the spring of 1978, several members of Peoples Temple living in Jonestown collaborated in producing a book-length manuscript entitled Target: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple. Although it began as an early history of the movement and \u2013 just as importantly \u2013 of Jim Jones, the work soon turned into a narrative account of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":13225,"menu_order":33,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-130691","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/130691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130691"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/130691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130709,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/130691\/revisions\/130709"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}