The Mexican soldiers were mestizos or mulattos, and were regarded in St. Augustine as unfit to be soldiers. Many of them ended up working on ranches. Ranches and farms in Spanish Florida paid a tithe, or tax in kind, of two-and-one-half percent of their produce. Governor Hita y Salazar, needing funds for construction of the Castillo de San Marcos, and for founding new Spanish towns at strategic points in Florida, introduced new taxes on farms and ranches, including an annual tax of 50 pesos for each ranch, and a charge of 50 pesos per league to make the grazing licenses inheritable. The new taxes brought in 2,500 pesos for the government between 1677 and 1685. Inspired by the new taxes imposed by the Spanish government, caciques (native chiefs) began levying a charge on the use of old fields in their chiefdoms, which they called "tribute". Menéndez Márquez family Foremost among the criollos engaged in cattle ranching in Spanish Florida was the Menéndez Márquez family. The family was descended from Pedro Menéndez Márquez, nephew of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, the founder of Spanish Florida. Pedro Menéndez Márquez was the third royal governor of Spanish Florida. Pedro Menéndez Márquez's great-nephew (or, possibly, his grandson), Francisco Menéndez Márquez, was the Royal Treasurer-Steward for Spanish Florida from 1628 until 1637, and again from 1639 until his death in 1649. When governor Benito Ruíz de Salazar Vallecilla was suspended from office in 1646, Francisco Menéndez Márquez and acting accountant Pedro Benedit Horruytiner acted as co-governors until Salazar Vallecilla was returned to office in 1648. By the 1640s Potano Province had become largely depopulated and subsumed into Timucua Province. Francisco started cattle ranching in the abandoned Potano lands, with the approval of Timucua chief Lúcas Menéndez, probably in 1646 or 1647, while acting as co-governor. By 1649 the ranch was worth 8,000 pesos and earning 700 pesos a year. A few years after Francisco's death, the royal treasury in St. Augustine was audited, and it was found that between 16,000 and 20,000 pesos were missing (Francisco's salary as treasurer was 1,470 pesos a year). Bushnell calculates that 6,000 pesos would have purchased about 200 head of cattle, five horses, and two slaves to serve as ranch hands. This sum accounts for much of the 16,000 to 20,000 pesos that Francisco had "borrowed" from the royal treasury. Francisco's family repaid about three-quarters of the missing funds, and