My ancestors made their way out west before the Civil War, but plenty of them lived way out on the frontier in Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Carolinas from the earliest days, before courthouses and even wagon roads. Are there some good sources about frontier isolation, clans/kinship groups, frontier justice, religion, and so on?
I am not afraid of primary sources neither, presuming they are accessible.
Thanks!
EDIT: By "poor" I don't mean destitute; I mean I'm not looking for information about plantation life, just ordinary frontier homesteaders.
Try bitterly divided by David Williams and also plain folk in a rich mans war by David Williams.
I can't really speak as to a source for all poor whites in the deep South, but frontier isolation and semi-South living (depends on how you define South, also the person was fairly mobile in their life) can be found in Davy Crockett's autobiography, called A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (available there through Project Gutenberg). He was born fairly poor, was a very frontier-oriented person, and got into politics as well: but his focus in his book is on his life and the events in it. Fairly interesting, sometimes funny read that you might enjoy.