Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance: The Glorious Impostor

by Donald B. Smith

Profiles the life of Buffalo Child Long Lance, a man of mixed heritage who escaped the poverty of his North Carolina town and gained fame by lying about his age, name, tribal affiliation, status, and accomplishments.

Genres: Native American, History, Nonfiction, Biography

400 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2000

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Please see: Donald B. Smith

Donald B. Smith (1946-) is a professor emeritus of History at the University of Calgary who focused his career on the history of Aboriginal Canada, Quebec, and the history of Calgary and Southern Alberta. He was born in Toronto and raised in Oakville, Ontario. He obtained his Honours B.A. in Modern History from the University of Toronto in 1968; his M.A. from Université Laval in Quebec City in 1969; and his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1975. He taught Canadian History at the University of Calgary from 1974 to 2009, where he is now Professor Emeritus of History and member of the Order of the University of Calgary. He is married to Nancy Townshend, and they have two sons, David and Peter. Smith and his family live in Calgary.Donald Smith's publications include five biographies on individuals connected with Aboriginal Canada, Long Lance: The True Story of an Impostor (1982), Sacred Feathers: The Reverend Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonaby) and the Mississauga Indians (1987), From the Land of Shadows: The Making of Grey Owl (1990), and Mississauga Portraits: Ojibwe Voices from Nineteenth Century Canada (2013), as well as Calgary's Grand Story: The Making of a Prairie Metropolis from the Viewpoint of Two Heritage Buildings, a history of Calgary (2005). He tells the story of his interest in the Mississauga (Ojibwe) First Nations on the north shore of Lake Ontario in the introduction to the second edition of Sacred Feathers, published in 2013. In 2014, Smith's book Mississauga Portraits won the Floyd S. Chalmers Award for the best book on Ontario history published in the preceding calendar year.

Reviews

[Patricia]

A pbs show about the changing attitudes toward Native Americans in popular culture was the first time I had ever heard about Slyvester Long aka "Long Lance". Originally from North Caroline and of mixed racial heritage, black, white and some Native American, Long Lance spent his adult life promoting himself as a full blooded Native American, even changing his native origins to the plains indians of western movies and lore, who were the "injuns" Americans were most familiar with. In actuality, whatever Native heritage he had lay with the more obscure and by this time dimished tribes of the southeastern U.S. Intelligent, handsome and personable, Long managed to almost leave behind the racially prejudiced south where his options were limited. He managed to graduate from the Carlisle Indian Residential School in PA, which was his ticket to being regarded as a genuine Indian. His life from then on was a combination of achievements, lies and fear of being unmasked as a fake. He was a master storyteller, especially about himself, weaving other people's experiences into his own. He failed the West Point exam, perhaps on purpose, yet he bragged about attending that school. He turned his WW1 experiences into heroic medal winning deeds. He managed to achieve celebrity, writing books, giving lectures, mixing with society and celebrities. But he was always dogged by suspicions, altho in the pre-cyber age it was time consuming and difficult sometimes to trace a persons background. Ultimatly the truth about his mixed racial heritage came out, some of his previous supporters dropped him, others were not concerned. Eventually he did take his own life. It is hard not to feel compassion for someone who simply was trying to avoid the prejudice that would have ruled his life. There is a slim line between "reinventing" oneself and being an imposter sometimes. However, some of the other Native Americans of this period were not pleased with his deception. The author, Donald Smith, writes in a very non-judgmental manner about his subject.
Long Lance, the True Story of an Imposter by Donald Smith.

[Itisme]

2006