I HEAR YA GODFATHER CUNEY YOUR WHITE DADDY WAS A DECENT SLAVE OWNER AND THERE WAS A MYSTERY ALCHEMISTS SOCIETY OF AFRICANS ON THE PLANTATION I HEAR YA BUT UNTIL I GET MY MONEYS IM POOR ASS PATSEY IN DESPAIR TRYING TO HOLD IT TOGETHER SO WHEN I GET MY MONEYS THEN I WILL TELL THE DIRECTOR ALL ABOUT THE SECRET SOCIETY OF FLYING AFRICANS AND TIME TRAVELERS AND SUCH THAT WAS ON YALLS LANDS

Norris Wright Cuney was born on May 12, 1846 near Hempstead, Texas in the Brazos River valley.^[2] He was the fourth of eight children of Adeline Stuart, a mixed-race slave of African, European, and Native American ancestry. Among his siblings were his older brothers Joseph, who later became an attorney, and his younger brother Nelson, who became a building and painting contractor.^[3] Their father was Adeline's white master, Colonel Philip Cuney, a wealthy plantation owner of English ancestry. He also had a white family, and eventually married a total of three wives. He was a politician and state senator.^[4]
By 1850 Philip Cuney was one of the largest landowners in the state, with 2,000 acres and 105 slaves, including Stuart. He was one of the 50 largest slaveowners in the state in 1860.^[5] Cuney raised cotton but also had a dairy operation, with several hundred cows, plus beef cattle brought to the marriage by his second wife, Adeline Ware, with whom he had three children before her death before 1850.^[6] He married for the third time in 1851. Cuney considered Houston his home, where he settled in 1853.^[7]