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The bishop of Cuba suggested the Crown use a third of Florida's Indian fund for a bishopric
Source: Situado and Sabana #82
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As Prado's [1647] report on the rising gasto de indios indicates, by 1654 the Indian fund had been integrated into the regional economy. It rewarded the caciques for organizing and delivering their vassals to St. Augustine in relays for "the service of the king." It paid for the jornales, or daily wages, of the drafted laborers: the rescates of knives, beads, cloths, scissors, and hatchets which their chiefs doled out to them had been bought with gasto de indios money. It paid for the maize with which the caciques and their vassals in the king's service were rationed while they were in St. Augustine. It even repaired their tools. By providing the presidio with native labor at the king's expense, the Indian fund was, in effect, another royal subsidy to Spanish colonists. The gasto de indios was in constant danger of misapplication, as authorities tried to draw on it for other expenses. The bishop of Cuba suggested to the Crown in 1691 that two-thirds of the ''gasto de indios," or 1000 ducats, should go to provide one-third of the support for a Florida bishopric, with the rest of the money to come from tithes. (Bushnell SS)
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