Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 153 



supposed to be murdered, returned after two or three 

 years* captivity, only to find his wife married again. 

 In the wilderness a husband was almost a necessity 

 to a woman; her surroundings made the loss of the 

 protector and provider an appalling calamity; and 

 the widow, no matter how sincere her sorrow, soon 

 remarried for there were many suitors where 

 women were not over-plenty. If in such a case the 

 one thought dead returned, the neighbors and the 

 parties interested seem frequently to have held a sort 

 of informal court, and to have decided that the wo- 

 man should choose either of the two men she wished 

 to be her husband, the other being pledged to submit 

 to the decision and leave the settlement. Evidently 

 no one had the least idea that there was any legal 

 irregularity in such proceedings. 53 



The McAfees themselves and the escaped convict- 

 servant whom they captured typify the two promi- 

 nent classes of the backwoods people. The frontier, 

 in spite of the outward uniformity of means and 

 manners, is pre-eminently the place of sharp con- 

 trasts. The two extremes of society, the strongest, 

 best, and most adventurous, and the weakest, most 

 shiftless, and vicious, are those which seem naturally 

 to drift to the border. Most of the men who came 

 to the backwoods to hew out homes and rear fami- 

 lies were stern, manly, and honest; but there was 



53 Incidents of this sort are frequently mentioned. Gen- 

 erally the woman went back to her first husband. "Early 

 Times in Middle Tennessee," John Carr, Nashville, 1859, 

 p. 231. 



