Author Description

"To the glittering world of New York society in the 1920s, Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance was a presidential appointee to West Point, decorated war hero, Hollywood movie star, daring aviator, charming socialite, respected journalist, best-selling author, and Indian advocate and activist - a full-blooded Blackfoot chief who captured the imagination of North America with the story of his life and the plight of his people.". "But in reality Long Lance was Sylvester Long, tbe son of mixed-blood parents born into slavery in the American south. Although he could legitimately lay claim to some native ancestry, Sylvester Long could not, as a child, break through the South's color barrier, which at the time denied anyone with mixed bloodlines the privileges of white society. At eighteen years of age, yearning for a future not scripted by slavery, he took his first serious step toward re-creating himself. He embellished the extent of his Indian ancestry in order to gain entrance to an Indian residential school. It was the first in a series of lies he would tell often and with increasing flair as the Jazz Age moved into full swing." "In this account of Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance, Donald Smith reveals the story of a glorious impostor whose deceptions led him on a trail to fame but also to desperation and infamy."--BOOK JACKET.