{"id":14613,"date":"2011-06-30T02:16:10","date_gmt":"2011-06-30T02:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=14613"},"modified":"2011-07-27T04:43:11","modified_gmt":"2011-07-27T04:43:11","slug":"the-first-black-prairie-novel-chief-buffalo-child-long-lances-autobiography-and-the-repression-of-prairie-blackness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=14613","title":{"rendered":"The First Black Prairie Novel: Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance’s Autobiography and the Repression of Prairie Blackness"},"content":{"rendered":"

The First Black Prairie Novel: Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance’s Autobiography and the Repression of Prairie Blackness<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Journal of Canadian Studies\/Revue d’\u00e9tudes canadiennes<\/a>
\nVolume 45, Number 2<\/a> (Spring 2011)
\npages 31-57
\nE-ISSN: 1911-0251; Print ISSN: 0021-9495
\nDOI: 10.1353\/jcs.2011.0022<\/p>\n

Karina Vernon<\/a><\/strong>, Assistant Professor of English
\nUniversity of Toronto<\/em><\/p>\n

This essay situates Chief Buffalo Child’s <\/a>Long Lance<\/a>: The Autobiography of a Blackfoot Indian Chief<\/em> (1928) within the cultural context of its production, the anti-Black racial climate of the Canadian Prairies in the early part of the twentieth century, in order to analyze the textual repression of its author’s Blackness. Although the Autobiography<\/em> has been discredited as a fraud because, as Donald B. Smith discovered, Long Lance was not in fact Blackfoot<\/a> as the Autobiography<\/em> claims, but “mixed blood” from North Carolina<\/a>, this essay reclaims it as the first novel<\/em> penned on the Prairies by a Black author, for it tells a true\u2014more metaphorical and allegorical than factual\u2014story about the desire on the part of displaced “new” world Blacks for Indigenous status and belonging. This essay examines the implications of claiming the Autobiography<\/em> as the first Black prairie novel and explores how reading it as fiction rather than autobiography extends our understandings of “passing<\/a>,” racial identification and transformation.<\/p>\n

Cet article situe l’autobiographie Long Lance: The Autobiography of a Blackfoot Indian Chief<\/em> (1928) du Chef Buffalo Child dans le contexte culturel de sa production\u2014le climat racial anti-Noirs des Prairies canadiennes au d\u00e9but du XXe<\/sup> si\u00e8cle\u2014afin d’analyser la r\u00e9pression textuelle de son auteur noir. Donald B. Smith a par la suite consid\u00e9r\u00e9 cette autobiographie comme une imposture, ayant d\u00e9couvert que Long Lance ne faisait pas partie de la conf\u00e9d\u00e9ration des Pieds-Noirs, mais \u00e9tait plut\u00f4t un \u00ab sang-m\u00eal\u00e9 \u00bb de la Caroline du Nord. Cependant, l’auteur du pr\u00e9sent article consid\u00e8re cette autobiographie comme le premier roman<\/em> \u00e9crit dans les Prairies par un Noir puisqu’il raconte une histoire vraie\u2014quoique plus m\u00e9taphorique et all\u00e9gorique que factuelle\u2014du d\u00e9sir des Noirs d\u00e9plac\u00e9s du \u00ab Nouveau \u00bb Monde d’acqu\u00e9rir le statut d’indig\u00e8ne et d’appartenir \u00e0 leur monde. L’article examine les cons\u00e9quences de la classification de cette pseudo-autobiographie comme le premier roman des Prairies \u00e9crit par un Noir et explore les mani\u00e8res dont sa lecture en tant qu’\u0153uvre de fiction plut\u00f4t qu’autobiographie nous aide \u00e0 mieux comprendre le concept de \u00ab passage \u00bb, d’identification et de transformation raciales.<\/p>\n

Read or purchase the article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The First Black Prairie Novel: Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance’s Autobiography and the Repression of Prairie Blackness Journal of Canadian Studies\/Revue d’\u00e9tudes canadiennes Volume 45, Number 2 (Spring 2011) pages 31-57 E-ISSN: 1911-0251; Print ISSN: 0021-9495 DOI: 10.1353\/jcs.2011.0022 Karina Vernon, Assistant Professor of English University of Toronto This essay situates Chief Buffalo Child’s Long Lance: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,19,459,1196,8,3015,6462],"tags":[6704,6994,6993,6701,6703,6702],"class_list":["post-14613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-canada","category-history","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-native-americans","category-passing-2","tag-chief-buffalo-child-long-lance","tag-donald-b-smith","tag-donald-smith","tag-journal-of-canadian-studies","tag-karina-vernon","tag-revue-detudes-canadiennes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}