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Spaniards took over north and central Florida Indian land for cattle ranches

Source: The Menendez Marquez Cattle Barony at La Chua and the Determinants of Economic Expansion in Seventeenth-Century Florida #163

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The Potano territory, which included the good grass country, ran west from the St. Johns River to the Gulf marshes, south to Ocali (presently Ocala), and north to the San Martin River (Suwannee-Santa Fe). Above Potano on the way to Apalache there were two other regions peopled by Timucuan-speakers--Utina and Ustaqua. The natives of Potano suffered through three generations of exposure to European pathogens and firearms, two wars, and sixteen years of exile before they finally made peace with the Spanish in 1600. The Indians agreed to furnish laborers and maize to St. Augustine when required, and requested that friars be sent into their territory.

Within a few years the Franciscans were gathering their Potano converts into missions placed at strategic points along the communications network. Two transpeninsular roads led from the east coast to Apalache. On the upper artery were the missions of San Diego de Salamototo, at a ferry point on the St. Johns; San Francisco de Potano, near present-day Gainesville; Santa Fe, where the road entered Utina by a natural bridge over the Santa Fe; and San Juan de Guacara, the ferry point over the Guacara River (Upper Suwannee) between Utina and Ustaqua. The lower road crossed the St. Johns two leagues south of Salamototo and came into the savannahs of the interior somewhere in what is presently southern Alachua County. Then, heading northwest toward Apalache, the road crossed the San Martin four leagues from its mouth, at present Old Town Hammock, which may have been the site of San Martin mission. The two transpeninsular roads were linked at San Francisco by a north-south trail. (Note: The trail described by ...Vanderhill, "The Alachua Trail"... was east of this earlier one.) Water ways were also available. From the St. Johns there was access into the interior by the Oklawaha; from the Gulf, by the San Martin or the Amajuro, the lower of the two Withlacoochees. The transportation network for north-central Florida was complete, and docile Indians were there to run the errands, row the canoes, and carry the burdens. 
(Bushnell MM)