Chief of Florida's Seminole tribe talks alligator wrestling and Hard Rock

I began catching baby alligators when I was around four or five years old. I would go hunting with (tribal) leaders, who were trying to capture their mothers, and I got to grab the little ones, which didn't hurt so much. At age 13, other tribe members started wrestling (alligators) to make money from tourists, so I decided to do that, too. After going to college, I travelled all over (North America), wrestling alligators. I liked showing off my skills to the tourists.

It was mandatory to register (with the United States Army) in the 60s. Military life intrigued me. It was the same time as the Vietnam war, so me and some buddies voluntarily joined the 101st Airborne (Division) in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Unit No502. I spent one year in the US training then I was sent to Vietnam for 18 months. In Vietnam, we would search for radio stations and could pick up Hanoi Hannah playing songs. John Fogerty, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Little Richard and B.B. King were my idols. When we heard them, it raised our spirits. If Purple Haze came on, we would dance.

I had learned to play guitar aged 12. In 1969, after the army, I joined a band and sang other people's songs. One day I went to a folk festival and I was told to start writing songs about my culture, and I started writing about life - 20 songs. Our Seminole language was disappearing, so I wrote in our language, so kids would speak and learn their native tongue.

My grandparents were in politics within the tribe and they went to meetings about the US government trying to have the Seminoles become organised as a sovereign government. There were no babysitters then, so I tagged along and learned a lot. This went on from 1949 to 1957. I heard these discussions every day and night. People wanted us to be federally recognised. I heard about the benefits that would come from being recognised, but I didn't know what rich or poor meant. I just "was". When we became organised, I knew I wanted to be chief. I saw we needed education, better standards of living, better housing. So I aimed to become chairman. I took one semester of college and learned about business and in 1979, I became chairman.

We started our own police force that year. By the time I became chairman, a tremendous amount of drugs were being brought onto the reservation (in Florida) - all flown in. The drug lords knew outside police forces could not come onto our sovereign land. When they figured that out, they used our land for drug drops; we didn't know this was happening until I saw it in the media.