The North Star and the Atlantic 1848

Focusing on the news writing, editorials, and correspondence that filled the pages of the North Star, along with the institutional and material features of the newspaper, this article recovers an African American perspective on the events of 1848. In the pages of Douglass’s newspaper, the 1848 revolutions encompassed not just the uprisings in Europe but also the struggles for freedom occurring throughout the Atlantic world. Ultimately, the North Star mapped out the multiple routes of an Atlantic 1848, an international movement whose pathways crisscrossed, overlapped, and at times collided, yet nevertheless moved towards the common destination of liberation.