To encourage production, new settlements of Spaniards in the Indies were usually free from tithing for the first 10 years. While the adelantado’s contract did not specify this, it probably held true for Florida. [Note 5: Gov. Quiroga y Losada 4/1/1688] The tithes first gathered were so minimal that they enjoyed a certain independence-by-neglect. At the end of the 16th century the royal officials mentioned that they were collecting them in kind, auctioning the produce like any other royal property and using the proceeds to pay their own salaries. As can be seen in Table 4, the tithes of 1600 amounted to 840 pesos, ¾ of which came from sales of maize, and the remainder from miscellany (menudos), probably other preservable produce. If the tithes of this period were collected at the rate of 2.5%, as they were later in the century, this suggests a titheable production worth over 33,000 pesos. Treasurer Juan Menendez Marquez noted in 1602 that the tithes of 1600 had been auctioned immediately after harvest; the tithes of 1601 (which he did not disclose) only appeared to be higher because he and the other officials had stored the maize until its price had risen by half, then the presidio had to buy it to ration slaves and soldiers. [Note 6: Bartolome de Arguelles 3/30/1601; Francisco de la Rocha and Francisco de Cigarroa 7/10/1685; Juan Menendez Marquez 9/20/1602] AN79 Around this time the crown ordered that the tithes go for four years toward construction of a parish church, a disposition that was gradually extended to 20 years. After that, church construction and maintenance were subsidized by 2,000 ducats from the vacancies of New Spain bishoprics, and the Florida officials were permitted to use 516 ducats of the local tithes to pay secular clergy salaries, letting the remainder accumulate. Whenever the fund reached 4,000 or 5,000 reales the crown sent instructions on how to spend it. (Bushnell KC)