Senecú (Senecú del Sur, San Antonio de Senecú) is a small Mexican village on the outskirts of

Ciudad Juárez Ciudad Juárez ( , ; "Juárez City"), commonly referred to as just Juárez (Lipan language, Lipan: ''Tsé Táhú'ayá''), is the most populous city in the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Mexican state of Chihuahua (state), Chihuahua. It was k ...

, Chihuahua. It is at an altitude of 1,123 m. and lies within the Chihuahuan Desert ecosystem. Senecú del Sur was founded in 1682Baldridge, Carol (1998) "El Paso Missions: Senecu" ''Texas Missions (fact cards)'' Toucan Valley Publications, Milpitas, California, card 40, by Piro Indians from Senecú,

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

, who fled south along with the Spanish after the

Pueblo Revolt The Pueblo Revolt of 1680, also known as Popé, Popé's Rebellion or Po'pay's Rebellion, was an uprising of most of the Indigenous Pueblo people against the Spanish Empire, Spanish colonizers in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, larger t ...

. There is evidence that some

Tompiro The Tompiro Indians were Pueblo Indians living in New Mexico. They lived in several adobe villages east of the Rio Grande Valley in the Salinas region of New Mexico. Their settlements were abandoned and they were absorbed into other Pueblo Nation ...

joined the pueblo. Originally it was located on the north side of the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...

, with its mission church (located approximately two miles west-northwest of the Ysleta, Texas mission."San Antonio de Senecú" ''The Handbook of Texas Online''
accessed 21 February 2009 This close proximity resulted in repeated disputes over the boundary between the two pueblos. In 1832 there was severe flooding and due to the meanderings of the Rio Grande much of the village was destroyed. Further losses to the river occurred and after the Senecú Pueblo was not recognized by the Texas legislature, and after they had lost their suit of 1871 to Ysleta, the inhabitants probably developed the same land which was now south of the river; however, the town was not formally established at its current location until 1949. As of 1901, Senecú still had "a tribal organization, with a cacique (who is also custodian of the church), a governor, a war-chief, and subordinate officials."Fewkes, J. Walter (1902) "The Pueblo Settlements near El Paso, Texas" ''American Anthropologist'' New Series, 4(1): pp. 57-75, p. 73
full text
accessed 21 February 2009 The old church identified in 1901 is gone, replaced by a modern church. The 1910

Mexican Revolution The Mexican Revolution () was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from 20 November 1910 to 1 December 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It saw the destruction of the Federal Army, its ...

caused some members of the community to flee across the border to Ysleta and Socorro del Sur.Miller, Mark Edwin (2004) ''Forgotten Tribes: Unrecognized Indians and the Federal Acknowledgment Process'' University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska, p. 217, The Pueblo is commemorated by a stone monument on Alameda Street, in

El Paso El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...

, about 1½ miles west of the Ysleta Mission.

Notes

{{Coord, 31, 42, 25, N, 106, 24, 11, W, display=title Populated places in Chihuahua (state) Ciudad Juárez Spanish missions in New Mexico Spanish missions in Texas Populated places established in 1682 Populated places established in 1949 Tiwa Pueblo peoples 1682 establishments in the Spanish Empire