According to Eric Arnesen in The Black Worker: Race, Labor, and Civil Rights since Emancipation and Richard Valelly in The Two Reconstructions: the Struggle for Black Enfranchisement, slaves so despised their masters that one of the first things they did as freemen was change given names. Instead, they adopted names taken from places, trades, and even African relatives. Keeping the master's name was considered a last resort as a means to escape the rampant violence visited on newly freed blacks.