Coffee drying farm, Los Ateos

By the end of the nineteenth century, coffee exportation had come to dominate the Salvadoran economy. In order to amass larger and more lucrative plantations, coffee growers displaced the indigenous Pipil Indians from their land, creating an oligarchy (later known as the "Fourteen Families") that dominated Salvadoran politics for decades. This repressive political and economic system was a significant contributing factor to the outbreak of civil war in 1979.