The northern Daxing’an Mountains (DM) of China has experienced many serious drought disasters, which caused great losses of agricultural production and people’s lives. However, the temporal and spatial limitations of instrument data have seriously hindered our understanding of drought change and its impact on human culture and natural ecosystems. Here, we analyze the process, patterns and driving mechanism of drought in the northern DM based on a 294-year (CE 1722–2015) tree-ring-based Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) drought reconstruction. Drought in the northern DM is consistent with other drought records in the central DM and the eastern and central Mongolian Plateau (MP). In the past 294 years, most of the extreme dry or wet years or periods occurred in the 18th and 20th centuries. There were 2 years and 78.7 years significant (p < 0.01) periodic peaks of drought in northern DM. After the rapid warming in the 1980s, the central and northern DM experienced a wet trend, while the eastern and western MP experienced a drying trend. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) plays a key role in influencing the drought in the northern DM by modulating the oceanic-atmospheric-land surfaces interaction process and other large-scale circulations. Compared with the effect of AMO on drought patterns in North America, Europe and western MP, the cold phase of AMO is more favorable to drought in northern DM.