Qaqchas and to Plebe in “Rebellion”: Carnival vs. Lent in 18th‐Century Potosí

Focusing on a “rebellion” of an 18th century guild of mine thieves in Potosi, the repaper highlights the significance of category–transgressing peoples in the crisis of the late colony. Just as españoles criolios began to prepare their rebellion laagainst Spain, and to forge a new concept of nation wedded to a state founded on popular sovereignty, older colonial distinctions based on differences of nación gave way to full fledged racial catogeries A major impetus for for these innovations, I argue, was the danger to colonial regimes of privileged posed by the 18th century hybridity peoples like Q 'aqchas.