was allowed to repay the balance over six years. Cattle ranching boomed in Spanish Florida in the latter part of the 17th century. Francisco's son, Tomás Menéndez Márquez, and Tomás's son Francisco II, founded or bought most of the ranches located between the St. Johns River and the Potano missions (in what is now western Alachua County). The best known of the ranches was La Chua, on the north side of what is now known as Paynes Prairie. Tomás also formed alliances with other cattle ranchers. Several of his children married into other ranching families. As did other ranches, the Menéndez Márquez ranches sent cattle to St. Augustine. Cattle were sometimes driven to Apalachee Province, as well. A port called San Martin was established in the early 1670s on the Suwannee River, and Tomás shipped hides, dried meat and tallow to Havana from that port. Tomás owned a ship which was engaged in the trade between San Martin, Havana and San Marcos in Apalachee Province. Conflict with chiefdoms The natives of Spanish Florida did not take well to cattle ranching in their territories. Resistance to the ranches was part of an ongoing struggle between the "republic of Indians" and the "republic of Spaniards" over the control of land and of the labor of the natives. That struggle was complicated by differences between caciques and "common" natives, and by missionaries supporting native complaints against Spanish ranchers and the Spanish government. Trouble over cattle started with the founding of the colony. At the very beginning of the colony, cattle had to be placed on an island on the coast, where they were protected from native attacks by trained attack dogs. Reports of natives complaining about cattle destroying crops occurred throughout the 17th century. In 1694, the residents of San Diego de Salamototo, the ferry station on the St. Johns River for the trail connecting St. Augustine and Apalachee, were severely short of food after cattle had destroyed their crops. Timucuas sometimes killed cattle to protect their fields, with the earliest report of such killing dating from 1614. During the Timucua Rebellion in 1658, Timucuas raided the Menéndez Márquez family's la Chua ranch, killing four ranch hands (two on the trail and two at the ranch) and all the cattle they could find. Franciscan missionaries to the Apalachee and Timucua resisted Spanish settlements and ranches near native towns as threats to the conversion