This article analyzes the way the image of free color tribute payers was built in Nueva Espana during the last decades of the eighteenth century. In order to do that, it is necessary to emphasize the quantities that they paid, as well as the process in which mulatto women and foundlings were exempt from fiscal payment. The last part presents the problem of black descendant militias and the negotiations they carried through with the Spanish Crown to avoid payment. With the help of multiple sources, this paper shows a series of debates and regional circumstances that bring into question the reasons why Mexican historiography has given so little importance to this area of study.