The present work focuses on the progressive stigmatization experienced by the Bolivian mestizo, particularly with respect to citizenship.¹The change in category from mestizo to the denigrating one ofcholopermits a reflection on the social and political circumstances which inhibited or encouraged the reception of social Darwinism in Bolivia between 1880 and 1920. One can define this current as a conglomeration of ideas centering on the recognition of inequality between men, races, and classes as a fact, even a right, and which depicted social evolution as a constant struggle between victors and vanquished.²Judging by the research of Ramiro Condarco Morales,³Guillermo Francovich,⁴Juan Albarracín Millán,⁵and Marie Danielle Demelas,⁶Bolivia's libraries and bookstores offered access to texts representative of the multiple tendencies which gave rise to Darwinism.⁷In the last third of the nineteenth century, Bolivian elites demonstrated familiarity with European scientific, political, and philosophic debates, and were sensitive to the ambiguity of their relevance to Bolivia.