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It may have been the greatest injustice of all.<br><br>A nation was uprooted.<br><br>A nation was ripped apart from its ancestral lands with its peoples' feet pointed west. So many died along the way.<br><br>The Five Civilized Tribes – the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole – rose to power on the land of their fathers, atop great smoky mountains, deep within vast timbered forests, lost among the mangroves, palmettos, and rivers of grass.<br><br>They were strong and proud – hunters who had become farmers. Many fine plantations were firmly planted on the land they called home, and slaves picked their cotton in the fields. They had achieved self-government and prospered. <br><br>But civilization rolled selfishly into their nation.<br>Treaties were passed, signed, and ignored.<br>Promises were made and broken, sometimes just forgotten.<br><br>The removal of the tribes from their homeland in the Southeast to Indian Territory takes on a new dimension as author Caleb Pirtle relates to a culture that existed before the Europeans set foot on American soil.<br><br>The people suffered greatly from this exodus – driven like cattle herds across frozen ground and icy rivers, families separated, children and the old ones dying – as they struggled down a path that would forever be known as "The Trail Where They Cried."<br>They were victimized by America's "Indian Policy."<br><br>It was a grave mistake.<br><br>Trail of Broken Promises was written for the casual historian searching for an emotional overview of a dark era in America's past. Developed for the traveler, the book contains numerous photographs depicting the heritage and culture of the Five Civilized Tribes, as well as historical traces – homes, council houses, prisons, and forts – of their early days in Oklahoma.