governor of Spanish Florida from 1675 to 1680, also freely distributed land grants, for which he was reprimanded by the Spanish Crown. He also stayed in Florida and became a cattle rancher after leaving office. The best potential pastures in Spanish Florida were grasslands in the Potano Province, 15 leagues west of the St. Johns River. The Potano people had regularly burned their lands to clear them for agriculture and to create better conditions for hunting. The repeated fires converted woodlands to savannas of wiregrass (Aristida stricta). The population of Potano Province started falling soon after the first missions were established there in 1606. Two of the early missions in Potano, San Miguel de Potano and San Buenaventura de Potano, disappeared from Spanish records after 1613, likely because of loss of population. Repeated epidemics struck Spanish Florida, including several between 1649 and 1655, leading governor Diego de Rebolledo to observe in 1657 that plague and smallpox had left few natives alive in Timucua Province (which by then included Potano Province). Operations Cattle on ranches were allowed to freely browse in the woods for most of the year. They were gathered up and confined in pens in the spring, where calves were branded, and a portion were selected to go to slaughter. Most of the cattle to be slaughtered were driven to St. Augustine. The cattle sent to St. Augustine initially provided meat for the garrison, with any surplus meat sold to civilians in the city. As ranch production increased, surplus hides, tallow and dried meat became available for export. Some was sent to Spain on the one ship a year that was permitted to sail from St. Augustine to Spain. The rest was shipped to Havana and other cities in the Caribbean. Juan Márquez Cabrera, governor of Florida from 1680 to 1687, ordered that cattle ready for sale were to be slaughtered at a government slaughterhouse in St. Augustine, at a fixed price, and with the payment of a tax. Ranches drew on several sources for workers. Some were repartimiento (involuntary unpaid draft) laborers, procured through the caciques of mission villages. Mission population declines led to ranchers contracting with natives as day laborers, with resettlement of the workers on ranches. Full-time ranch hands included both contract workers and slaves. In the 1660s a company of soldiers was sent from Mexico to Florida to fill up the ranks of the garrison.