Real counts of repartimiento workers do not exist. Florida officials were either not statistically minded or they deliberately withheld and obscured quantifiable data. What little information the historian can relay about the numbers of Indians occupied by the repartimiento either during or before the building of the Castillo is necessarily drawn from a file of correspondence about the need of confessors for this 17th-century Tower of Babel. Soon after construction began, Father Juan Moreno sent a letter to Queen Regent Mariana to the effect that so many Indians from the three provinces of Apalache, Timucua, and Guale assisted at the presidio that there were enough of them to form three pueblos. He asked that the Franciscan dotacion be increased by three stipends so that each pueblo of Indians could have its own religioso, understanding its language. The friars could reside at the friary and double as language instructors to newly arrived missionaries (Moreno 1673?). The Consejo referred his letter to the Franciscan Commissary General for the Indies, Antonio de Somoza, who responded: "In the city of St. Augustine the land is not cultivated for planting by plowing it, instead they work it with a hoe, to which exercise the governor compels the Indians reduced to Christianity. And because the land to be cultivated is great and the Indians of the vicinity are few, he obliges the Indians of the three aforesaid nations to descend [to the city], both to plant and to gather the fruit. Besides this, it is the custom to give indios de servicio to the private individuals of position. For these two ministries, more than 300 Indians are often found in St. Augustine, and some, knowing that their detention will be prolonged, bring their families. At present a much larger number of Indians are in the said city, compelled to assist with the fabrica of the Castillo, some occupied in quarrying stone, others in bringing it, and the rest in preparing the materials for the artisans. The number of lndians having so increased, it is only just that they should have priests to administer the Holy Sacraments to them, and that these be experts in the language of each one of those nations, so that in the midst of their miseries these poor ones should not be denied the comfort of their souls, all the more reason because, as the naturales are weakly, the work continuous, and the rations short, many of them die, and he who reaches the extremity of his life without a priest to understand his language places his salvation in jeopardy (Somoza, 1673). Asked to give his expert opinion, ex-governor Guerra commented that during his term in Florida it was the custom to confess the repartimiento Indians before they left home- 200 from Apalache, 50 to 55 from Timucua, and 45 to 50 from Guale. Guerra's breakdown, of course, applied to the 300-man, short-term repartimiento that had been in effect during his governorship, before the Castillo project drew extra workmen to St. Augustine for longer periods. The Queen Regent, considering the matter from all sides, increased the Franciscan dotacion by three friars expressly to furnish the repartimiento Indians with confessors (Spanish Crown, 1673). (Bushnell SS