Puritans in Massachusetts are the reason Rhode Island exists and maintained indepedence when lots of early small colonies got absorbed into what became the other New England states. Roger Williams was like: fuck these guys, they said they wanted freedom of religion and I believed them. So after he obtained the land, he went back to the king to ratify the transfer which lead to borders that weren't easily dissolved.

I was way too unspecific and have corrected my comment. Thank you for pointing it out.