Baháʼí Faith in North America

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, son of Baháʼu'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, visited the United States and Canada in 1912.

The sixth of the tablets was the first to mention Latin American regions and was written on 8 April 1916, but was delayed in being presented in the United States until 1919—after the end of the First World War and the Spanish flu pandemic.

The sixth tablet was translated and presented by Mirza Ahmad Sohrab on 4 April 1919, and published in Star of the West magazine on 12 December 1919.

[5] The Baháʼí National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada appointed the Inter-America Committee to take charge of the preparations.

[7] In 1946, a great pioneer movement, the Ten Year Crusade, began with, for example, sixty percent of the British Baháʼí community eventually relocating.

[8] As far back as 1951 the Baháʼís had organized a regional National Assembly for the combination of Mexico, Central America and the Antilles islands.

The first North American woman to declare herself a Baháʼí was Mrs. Kate C. Ives, of Canadian ancestry, though not living in Canada at the time.

In 1948, having grown in membership and diversity, the Bahá’í Community of Canada formed its individual National Spiritual Assembly.

In a June 1953 letter, Shoghi Effendi wrote that the house "should be viewed in the nature of a national Shrine, because of its association with the beloved Master, during His visit to Montreal.

[22] The American Religious Identity Survey (ARIS) conducted in 2001, with a sample size of 50,000, estimated that there were 84,000 self-identifying adult (21 and over) Baháʼís in the United States.

[23] The Association of Religion Data Archives estimated there were some 525,000 Baháʼís in 2005[16] however statistics in Feb 2011 show 175,000[24] excluding Alaska and Hawai'i.

Although a majority of Americans are Christians, Baháʼís make up the second-largest religious group in South Carolina as of May 2014[update].

[29] Baháʼís sources as of 2009 the national community includes various peoples and tribes of over 4,000 members organized in groups in over 30 locations throughout the country.

[16] The history of the Baháʼí Faith in Panama begins with a mention by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in the book Tablets of the Divine Plan, published in 1919; the same year, Martha Root made a trip around South America and included Panama on the return leg of the trip up the west coast.

[42] Hand of the Cause ʻAlí-Muhammad Varqá attended the inaugural election of the Barbados Baháʼís National Spiritual Assembly in 1981.

In 1983 Bill Nedden is credited with being the first pioneer to Dominica at the festivities associated with the inaugural election of the Dominican Baháʼís National Spiritual Assembly[43] with Hand of the Cause, Dhikru'llah Khadem representing the Universal House of Justice.

[57] The Association of Religion Data Archives (relying mostly on the World Christian Encyclopedia) estimated some 23000 Baháʼís in Haiti in 2005.

[51] Public recognition of the religion came in the form of the Governor General of Jamaica, Sir Howard Cooke, proclaiming a National Baha'i Day first on 25 July in 2003 and it has been an annual event since.