Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1709, American English, from back (adj.) + wood (n.) "forested tract." Also backwoods. As an adjective, from 1784.\n\nBACKWOODSMEN ... This word is commonly used as a term of reproach (and that, only in a familiar style,) to designate those people, who, being at a distance from the sea and entirely agricultural, are considered as either hostile or indifferent to the interests of the commercial states.
[John Pickering, "A Vocabulary, or Collection of Words and Phrases Which Have Been Supposed to be Peculiar to the United States of America," Boston, 1816]
Wiktionary
a. 1 Native to or located in a remote rural location. 2 rustic, unsophisticated, countrified.
Usage examples of "backwood".
California, but I never expected to find it here in the backwoods of North Carolina.
Swanee almost swallowed his whole like a man who was accustomed to big backwoods meals.
Huck Finn is himself the narrator, and he is made to speak as an uneducated backwoods boy would speak--if he happened to be a literary genius.
In close quarters he suffered their backwoods lubricity and knucklehead talk.
After some tinny clicking and a sharp squeal that made her shiver with discomfort, a nasal recording, in the heavy accent of some backwoods planet, began to drone.
During the day Charlie drudged at parish work, scooting around the backwood tracks on his untrustworthy steed, but when night fell he was trapped in the McGruder kitchen.