Long Lance: The True Story of an Imposter

John Marston was a federal civil servant in Ottawa.

Donald B. Smith, Associate Professor of Canadian History at the University of Calgary, has a special interest in Canadian native studies and is co-editor of two previously published works on this subject. His research into the life of a famous “Indian,” Grey Owl, led him to further research into the life of the man who dubbed himself “Long Lance,” another self-styled “Indian” who was probably one of the most celebrated con artists of the 1920s and ‘30s.

Son of mixed-blood parents living in North Carolina, Sylvester Long, at an early age, determined he would never step off the sidewalk in deference to a white person. The idea of becoming an Indian came to him while he worked part-time for a travelling circus where Indians were a major part of the circus “Wild West” show.

Newspaperman, author, soldier, film actor, lecturer, bon vivant, the darling of the 1930s New York cocktail social set, he lied his way into fame in both Canada and the United States — to say nothing of European trips in the company of a wealthy heiress. His newspaper reporting of life and living conditions, customs and tribal ethics of the Canadian and American Indians was a mixture of truth and fiction. In fact, his reports were a microcosm of his own lifestyle.

The reader is both repelled and fascinated by this strange and attractive man. He was completely immersed in his own life’s fabrications; he came to believe them as truth.

Life ended in suicide for Chief Long Lance in 1932; but the story is like a detective novel where the reader knows the murderer’s identity.

At times one can feel an empathy for this rascal whose pathological lying demonstrated that the “intelligentsia” can accept a handsome phony, as long as he has panache and nerve.

An excellently researched book with fine explanatory notes, it is also highly readable and an exciting tale.