Senecu is a small Mexican

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 village, now on the outskirts of Ciudad Juárez

Ciudad Juárez

Ciudad Juárez , officially known today as Heroica Ciudad Juárez, but abbreviated Juárez and formerly known as El Paso del Norte, is a city and seat of the municipality of Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Juárez's estimated population is 1.5 million people. The city lies on the Rio Grande...

, Chihuahua. It is at an altitude of 1123 m. and lies within the Chihuahuan Desert

Chihuahuan Desert

The Chihuahuan Desert is a desert, and an ecoregion designation, that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border in the central and northern portions of the Mexican Plateau, bordered on the west by the extensive Sierra Madre Occidental range, and overlaying northern portions of the east range, the Sierra...

 ecosystem.

Senecú del Sur was founded in 1682 by Piro indians

Piro Pueblo

Piro Pueblo : The Piros were a Native American Pueblo people that lived in a number of pueblos in the Rio Grande Valley around modern Socorro, New Mexico, USA. The now extinct Piro language was in the family of Tiwa languages...

 from Senecú

Senecú

The Piro Pueblo of Senecú was the southernmost occupied pueblo in New Mexico prior to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. It was located on the west bank of the Rio Grande within sight of San Pasqual. It may have also been within the proximity of the Black Mesa, which is near San Marcial...

, New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

, who fled south along with the Spanish after the Pueblo Revolt

Pueblo Revolt

The Pueblo Revolt of 1680, or Popé's Rebellion, was an uprising of several pueblos of the Pueblo people against Spanish colonization of the Americas in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México.-Background:...

. There is evidence that some Tompiro

Tompiro Indians

The Tompiro Indians were Pueblo Indians living in New Mexico. They lived in several adobe villages east of the Rio Grande River Valley in the Salinas region of New Mexico. Their settlements were abandoned and they were absorbed into other Indian tribes in the 1670s.-Origin and Language:Very...

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

Rio Grande

The Rio Grande is a river that flows from southwestern Colorado in the United States to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way it forms part of the Mexico – United States border. Its length varies as its course changes...

, with its mission church (located approximately two miles westnorthwest of the Ysleta, Texas

Ysleta, Texas

Ysleta is a community in El Paso, Texas. Ysleta was settled between October 9 and October 12, 1680, when Spanish conquistadors, Franciscan clerics and Tigua Indians took refuge along the southern bank of the Rio Grande. This is the oldest European settlement in the area that is the present-day U.S....

 mission. 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." The old church identified in 1901 is gone, replaced by a modern church. The 1910 Mexican Revolution

Mexican Revolution

The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...

 caused some members of the community to flee across the border to Ysleta and Socorro del Sur

Socorro, Texas

Socorro is a city in El Paso County, Texas, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 27,152. By the 2010 census, the number had grown to 32,013. It is part of the El Paso Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city was reactivated in 1986 and has been a working city since then...

.

The Pueblo is commemorated by a stone monument on Alameda Street, in El Paso

El Paso, Texas

El Paso, is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in far West Texas. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 649,121. It is the sixth largest city in Texas and the 19th largest city in the United States...

, about 1½ miles west of the Ysleta Mission.