Jonestown is a village in the
Demerara-Mahaica region of
Guyana
Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...
. The old name of the village was Voorzigtigheid.
The village is located 37.5 kilometres (24 miles) from
Georgetown between Hand-en-Veldt and the Atlantic Ocean,
and near the town of
Mahaica
Mahaica is a village located in region 4 of Demerara-Mahaica in Guyana. Mahaica is often used as a subregion for the adjoining villages near the Mahaica River like Hand-en-Veldt, Good Hope, Chelsey Park, and Jonestown
The Peoples Temple A ...
.
Therefore, it tends to be called "Jonestown, Mahaica" or "Jonestown, Mahaica, ECD", even today, although by current Guyanese administrative regions it is in
Demerara-Mahaica.
Lewis Osborne Inniss
Lewis may refer to:
Names
* Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name
* Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname
Music
* Lewis (musician), Canadian singer
* "Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohead ...
, the
Trinidadian writer and folklorist (a druggist, by profession), was born in Jonestown in 1848.
[Pierre, p.xv]
Jonestown, together with nearby areas along the lower courses of the Mahaica and other rivers of northeastern Guyana, has suffered from flooding during the wet season in the early years of the 21st century.
This Jonestown is not to be confused with the
Jonestown of the 1978 mass murder-and-suicide by members of the
Peoples Temple. Although that short-lived Jonestown was also in Guyana, it was in a different part of the country. The two places share their name by happenstance and have no other ties.
Notes
References
*
Populated places in Demerara-Mahaica
{{Guyana-geo-stub