This article examines a brief period of Lake Superior Ojibway history in detail. It describes the territorial dimensions of usufructuary rights and tells how one Ojibway community at Keweenaw Bay, William Jondreau's home, reorganized itself as an Anishnabe state in the 1840s and early 1850s. It also argues that this state-building grew out of Ojibway efforts to defend their rights and resources through an assertion of sovereignty. State-building developed in opposition to federal removal policy. It was guided by the experience of other Indians, especially the Mississaugas and Cherokees, and shaped by the advice of Mississauga Methodist missionaries. More generally, state-building drew upon the Keweenaw Indians' sense that they were, in fact, sovereign people. (Contains 41 notes.)