Atuagagdliutit was started in 1861 by the Danish geologist, inspector Hinrich Johannes Rink, who thought the Inuit population of Greenland was losing its cultural identity and a newspaper might stimulate the Greenlandic oral tradition by creating the opportunity to print and publish tales about life nationwide.
The newspaper was at first published exclusively in Kalaallisut and was primarily concerned with the Inuit identity.
A pioneering initiative on a European scale was the inclusion of illustrations: woodcuts, drawings, and paintings printed in full color.
[2] During the 1930s, the newspaper gradually changed away from the focus on tales and towards social problems and other ordinary news.
The old Atuagagdliutit was for many years published monthly, and that pattern continued after the merger with Grønlandsposten.