The phrase is often used interchangeably with (The Fourteen), referring not just to the people, but to the system that allowed a tiny minority to own the vast majority of the nation's arable land.

The Salvadoran Civil War (1980–1992) was fought, in part, to break the oligarchy’s hold. The 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords forced some land redistribution, and neoliberal reforms in the 1990s opened the economy to new players—remittances, supermarkets, call centers, and later, Bitcoin.

For decades, the Families ruled through the military. The military protected the landowners' property rights, and the landowners funded the military. However, by the 1970s, this arrangement began to fracture.

By the early 20th century, this small group controlled nearly half of the country's land and held significant sway over the military. Their insistence on maintaining a cheap labor force led to policies that suppressed education and social mobility. This deep inequality eventually fueled the ( La Matanza ), where the military, in alliance with the oligarchy, suppressed an uprising of indigenous and poor farmers.

The absolute dominance of the 14 Families created the conditions for the "La Matanza" (The Massacre) of 1932, where the military slaughtered upwards of 30,000 mostly indigenous peasants to quell an uprising.

By 1930, less than 2% of the population owned more than 60% of the arable land. The 14 families didn’t just own haciendas—they owned banks, export firms, utilities, and the legislative deputies who wrote the laws.

The "Families" did not just own the coffee plants; they owned the entire supply chain. They controlled the banks that financed the harvests, the railways that transported the beans, and the processing plants ( beneficios ) that prepared them for export. This vertical integration meant that when coffee prices boomed, the Families became astronomically wealthy. When prices crashed, the workers starved.

The 14 families that participated in this study are from various regions of El Salvador, including San Salvador, Santa Ana, and La Libertad. They come from different socio-economic backgrounds, but all share a strong sense of family and cultural pride. The families were selected through a combination of referrals from local community leaders and social services organizations.

For many Salvadorans, the names on the list may have changed, but the structure has not. The same last names still appear on the boards of the country’s most powerful corporations. The same neighborhoods produce nearly every finance minister. And the same fear of land reform—first forged in 1932—still haunts political debate.

Not exactly—but their descendants remain powerful.