Rice and Susanne Hooe had several difficulties with their servants which were serious enough to be heard in court. In January of 1662 a servant named John Price ran away after his mistress beat him and died of exposure and starvation; the next month the Hooes had to make bond not to abuse Mary Price; in April 1663 an Indian youth named Thomas complained of being detained illegally; and a Negro, John or Jack Kecatan, who held a bond from Rice Hooe dated 26 November 1653 to set him free in eleven years, served until November 1665 before the court ordered him freed.

On 25 April 1671 Rice Hooe took up 1000 acres in Stafford County and he soon moved there. His difficulties with servants reappeared. On 14 March 1689 John Davis, who had been sold for four years to Thomas Howard, deceased, “predecessor to Mr. Rice Hooe,” sued for his release. As late as 10 November 1692 Thomas Howard, cooper, complained that, although he was the heir-in-law to his deceased cousin Thomas Howard, Mr. Rice Hooe refused to deliver the assets to him.

The Story of John Kecotan

An African, John, or Jack, Kecotan arrived in Virginia as a bond-laborer in about 1635.  After 18 years, his owner, Rice Hooe I, promised him his freedom in another 11 years if he "lived a morally irreproachable life."  Rice Hooe I died before the time had elapsed, and the court ordered Kecotan to continue in servitude to his widow until her death.  Rice Hooe II inherited his mother's estate on November 10, 1665, "including, he assumed, John Kecotan."  On October 14, 1665, having been in servitude for 30 years, Kecotan petitioned the governor and Council of Virginia for his freedom.  He was called "John a Negro" when he presented a note written on November 26, 1653, by Rice Hooe I, that he should be free after serving 11 years "provided that he the sd Negro doth carefully and honestly performe his labour."  Rice Hooe II opposed freeing him on the grounds that "some time during the elder Hooe's lifetime Kecotan had had child-producing liaisons with two or more English women, thus violating the good-conduct condition of the original promise of freedom."  The Virginia General Court nevertheless ordered that Kecotan should be freed unless Hooe could prove his charges. 

The case was referred back to the Charles City County court for a hearing.  At the hearing, five men, apparently all Europeans, supported Kecotan's petition with a signed testimonial to his character.  They deposed that "John Kecatan Mr Howes’ Negro have done Mr Hoe true and good service."  Rice II produced two witnesses on his side.  He argued that Kecotan had been "refractory and disoedient," and presented the deposition of a former servant, Margaret Barker, who swore the "the sd Hoe had never a serv't maid but the sd Jack the Negro lay with her or got her w'th child."  The County court ordered him freed in February, 1666/66.  He is probably the "Jack negro" who was taxable on two persons in Surry County in 1670.  He and a codefendant, Robert Short, won a jury verdict in their favor in a suit brought against them by Richard Smith.  [Adapted from Theodore W. Allen, The Invention of the White Race, Vol. 2]

Note: Captain Rice Hooe’s third great grandson, William Fitzhugh Hooe, was hanged for murder and highway robbery.