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 power of the 14 families reached its most brutal expression in January 1932. After a peasant uprising led by Farabundo Martí, the government—acting in concert with the coffee oligarchy—responded with a genocidal campaign known as La Matanza (The Massacre). An estimated 10,000 to 40,000 indigenous and peasant Salvadorans were killed in a matter of weeks.
However, studies by the Fundación Nacional para el Desarrollo (FUNDE) show that economic concentration remains extreme. Many of the original family names have simply evolved into modern holding groups: (Poma family), Grupo de Sola , Grupo Agrisal , Grupo Cuscatlán , and Banco Agrícola (once controlled by the Dueñas family). They own the malls, the banks, the poultry farms, the beverage distributors, and the media outlets. 14 families of el salvador
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. By 1930, less than 2% of the population
A 2021 investigation by El Faro found that just five business groups—most with roots in the original 14—control over 40% of El Salvador’s non-financial corporate assets. Historians caution that “the 14 families” is more of a political shorthand than a precise census. The number 14 likely comes from the 14 departments of El Salvador, symbolizing nationwide control. Different historians name different lineages. Some argue it was actually 20 or 30 families who married into a core of 5 or 6. After a peasant uprising led by Farabundo Martí,
As one San Salvador street vendor put it: “Pueden cambiar los nombres, pero los dueños siguen siendo los mismos.” (“The names may change, but the owners remain the same.”) A mirror held up to El Salvador’s unfinished revolution—and a reminder that oligarchy is not just a group of people, but a system that keeps reinventing itself.