EOTO#1: Fredrick Douglass' North Star

 The Fredrick Douglass' North Star

The North Star newspaper founded by slave abolitionist Frederick Douglas and first published on December 3, 1847. The main objective for this newspaper business was to support against slavery and speak upon the idea of it becoming abolished. Its motto? “Right is of no sex- Truth is of no color-God is the Father of us all and we are brethren.” The name The North Star referred to the star that escaped slaves saw in the sky to guide them away from slavery and more towards freedom. Not only did Douglas write about the abolishment of slavery, he also fought and wrote for the rights of women during many issues of his newspapers .Within his first ever issue of The North Star he explained the reasons for making a black owned newspaper business and spoke upon the idea that he doesn’t want to seem ungrateful to abolitionist and friend William Lloyd Garrison who was also in the making of his own antislavery paper called The Liberator.

The North Star was published weekly, four pages long, and sold within the price of $2 per year to over 4,000 people in the U.S., Europe, and the West Indies. One out of the four pages were mainly focused on current abolitionist issues with an occasional forum by Douglass talking about the discrimination in American society. These forums would be called “The Den of Villainy” and would appear within the beginning of Douglass’s newspapers.  Adding on, Douglass would express his emotions upon his outlook on what Americans around the country claim to be their Christian beliefs and the blasphemy and discrimination he would see.

Though successful with getting the issues out, Douglass did not really have that much financial success with the birth of The North Star. Douglass receive extra funds from lectures he would have and mortgaged his own house to be able to keep the flame of his newspaper business alive. Furthermore, the financial struggles caused Douglass to merge his own newspaper with the Liberty Party Paper published by abolitionist Gerrit Smith and changed the name of his newspaper from The North Star to Fredrick Douglass’ Paper. Even though he changed his newspaper’s name, it was still very consistent with sales and appearance as a whole. Many other abolitionists came to the aid of Douglass with his paper such as Martin Delany, white abolitionist Julia Griffiths, escaped slave Harriet Jacobs, and author Charles Dickens.

Unfortunately, in November of 1859, The Frederick Douglass Paper was discontinued because of Douglass leaving the states for a lecture tour in England. While in England, Douglass avoided arrest back in the states for being associated with the assault on the federal armory in Virginia led By John Brown. However, When John Brown was arrested for his assault, Letters from Frederick Douglas were found within searching Brown’s possessions. Douglass was not supportive of Brown but he knew not to be in the states because he knew that Brown wouldn’t get a fair trial. With that, Douglass left the United States for 6 months.