The “Fourteen Families” of El Salvador refers to the historical oligarchy that dominated the country’s economy and politics, particularly during the 19th and early 20th centuries. While the exact list varies by source, the most frequently mentioned surnames include:
- Dueñas
- Regalado
- Hill
- Meza-Ayau
- De Sola
- Guirola
- Álvarez
- Meléndez
- Menéndez
- Deininger
- Quiñónez
- García Prieto
- Llach
- Salaverría
These families built their immense wealth primarily through coffee production, which became the backbone of El Salvador’s economy.
While they did not practice slavery, their control over land and labor systems created conditions that perpetuated widespread poverty among the rural population.
The government’s policies during this era reflected the oligarchy’s influence – notably, the current National Palace in San Salvador was constructed between 1905 and 1911 under President Pedro José Escalón using funds from coffee export taxes, effectively making the nation’s most important government building a product of the coffee economy they dominated.
Their power was fundamentally challenged and transformed by the agrarian reform that began in 1980.
This was a central policy of the revolutionary junta (military officers and civilian politicians) that seized power, aimed directly at breaking up the vast landholdings, that were the foundation of the oligarchy’s economic and political dominance.
