Combining discourse analysis with dissection of the economic and social realities of the island, the essay suggests that the colonial and noncapitalistic character of the island's economy and society undermined the possibilities of building a modern system of punishment. Moreover, the perceptions of Puerto Rican peasants as essentially lazy, ignorant and primitive sabotaged the likelihood of more democratic and liberal social and institutional practices. Given the weaknesses of capitalism in Puerto Rico, it made no sense to develop a penitentiary system, and thus the solution was to foster the development of penal colonies that better fit the economic necessities and mental assumptions of colonial elites. Hard labor in penal colonies was the colonial government's response to a population considered naturally recalcitrant about supplying labor to others. This and similar colonial penal regimes were both extensions and refashionings of metropolitan ones. Notes