The Puritans who arrived in America from 1630 to 1649, driven by religious persecution, committed themselves to the "covenant" with God, who had commanded the Puritans to "steal in the desert" (Reich, 2011, p. This "alliance" was to closely bind all residents, both religiously and socially. Centered on a common pasture, a village can be made up of a meeting place, land and several family homes that support the whole group or a “city on the hill” (Brinkley, 2010, p. 76) (Reich, 2011, p. 72). The social unit, which was tightly knit in the early years of the Massachusetts colony, began to strain and many challenges emerged over time that affected this social structure, primarily the growing commercialism of the surrounding society of New England (Nash, 2010, p. 73). ). On top of this, population growth that could not be supported with current lands, occurred with families moving further and further from the center and even fragmenting into smaller societies essentially separating themselves from the Church (Reich, 2011, p. 74-75), (Brinkley, 2010, p. 77). The response to the increasing separation of this utopia was the incorporation of an authoritarian form of government, limited to those filled with God's grace according to the norms or laws established by the group (Nash, 2010, p. 73) . This concern for separation from Puritan communities never abated, but increased as other men and women entered the colonies and attempted to impose their power and beliefs like Roger Williams or Anne Hutchinson (Nash , 2010, p. The leaders of the time, in their response to maintain this homogenous society, banned people who did not conform to their ideals and demonstrated that they would do anything to ensure this...... middle of paper . .....tion: A Concise History of the American People, Vol. I 6th edition. McGraw-Hill New York, NY. Kupperman, K. (2000) Major Issues in American Colonial History: Papers and Essays, (2nd ed.) Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Duiker, W. and Spielvogel, J. (2011). The Essential History of the World (Sixth ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. (ISBN 978-0-495-90227-0). Nash, G. (2010). Red, White, and Black: The People of Early North America (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. McPherson J. and Hogue J. (2009) Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction (4th ed.), New York, NY, The McGraw-Hill Company. Reich, J. (2011) Colonial America, (6th ed.) Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. The Columbian Exchange, (2011). Retrieved from http://www.shmoop.com/columbian-exchange.