Old Moppy

Old Moppy (c.1787-c.1842) was an Aboriginal leader, guide, warrior and resistance fighter. Also known as Moppy the chief, Chief Moppy, Moppé, Moppee and Mappe by the colonists and settlers in south-east Queensland. Old Moppy was a Ugarapul man from the Lockyer Valley region who drew together an alliance of Aboriginal nations in resistance to the early settlement in the Moreton Bay and Brisbane area.  Some sources confuse or blend Old Moppy with his son, who was also called Moppy but was better known as Multuggerah.

Old Moppy was a tall man, a warrior, described as "A more formidable looking fellow than Moppe I never saw. He was about forty years old, upwards of seven feet high, beautifully proportioned, and the muscles of his upper arms reminded me of the gnarled trunk of an oak."  James Campbell recorded that “old Moppy, it appears, was a very powerful chief. It was said by the late John Kent, Esq., who was a man of figures, that Moppy could raise twelve hundred fighting men”.