Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance (born Sylvester Clark Long; December 1, 1890 – March 20, 1932) was a mixed race African-American journalist, writer and film actor, believed today to be of Lumbee descent, who, for a time, became internationally prominent as a spokesman for Native American causes.

After his tribal claims were unable to be verified and the truth about his African-American heritage came out, he was dropped by these same social circles to which he had gained entry.

[2][3] During Long's lifetime, the Lumbee people were referred to by various names by the North Carolina General Assembly, including the "Cherokee Indians of Robeson County."

[4] Long first left North Carolina to portray Indian characters in a "Wild West Show".

He graduated in 1912 at the top of his class, which included prominent Native Americans such as Jim Thorpe and Robert Geronimo, a son of the famous Apache warrior.

"It is not surprising that in such a climate...Long Lance felt that he was safer, and that he could go further, by disavowing any connection, cultural or racial, to blackness.

"[8] Long presented himself as a Cherokee from Oklahoma and claimed he was a West Point graduate with the Croix de Guerre earned in World War I.

Through these years, Long also entered the civic life of the city, by joining the local Elks Lodge and the militia, and coaching football for the Calgary Canucks.

He was a successful writer, publishing articles in national magazines, reaching a wide and diverse audience through Macleans and Cosmopolitan.

A film magazine, Screenland, said, "Long Lance, one of the few real one-hundred-percent Americans, has had New York right in his pocket.

[16] Some neighbors from his home town testified that they thought his background may have included African ancestry, which meant by Southern racial standards, he was black.

[5] After the controversy surrounding his identity, California socialite Anita Baldwin took Long as a bodyguard on her trip to Europe.

[citation needed] Long left his assets to St. Paul's Indian Residential School in Southern Alberta.