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Francisco Menendez Marquez I may have started the La Chua cattle ranch

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

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And Francisco, the first Florida-born Menendez Marquez of the line, began raising cattle in Timucua.

So far, only two documents referring to this early ranch have been found. The ranch's location, its date of founding, even its name, are unknown. The most famous of the Menendez Marquez family ranches in a later time was the "hacienda de la chua," from which the town and county of Alachua took their name. Its owner, Francisco's son Thomas, claimed he had inherited la Chua from his father. (po Beltran Santa Cruz, November 20, 1655; Salvador de Cigarroa, Madrid, June 25, 1659; Thos Menendez Marquez and Joachin Florencia to Governor Torres y Ayala, April 15, 1697.) Without more documentation, however, it would be premature to equate la Chua with the first ranch. Francisco may have started his hacienda in 1646 or 1647, when he and the accountant were serving as co-interim governors, having suspended Governor Salazar Vallecilla for not finishing the galleon he had promised to the King. During that period Francisco led a troop of Spanish soldiers and Timucuans into Apalache province, where he subdued a rebellion and obligated the natives for the first time to the labor draft, for as he explained, the other provinces of Christians were almost out of Indians. (Frco Menendez Marquez and Po Benedit Horruytiner, May 17, 1646 and July 27, 1647; Frco Menendez Marquez, February 8, 1648.)
(Bushnell MM)