Who was Multuggerah?

Multuggerah was a warrior of the Jagera and other related peoples.  He led a resistance campaign against the white settlers for close to seven years.  He and his father (‘Old Moppy’) tried negotiating and bargaining with the newcomers in the 1840s but when communication broke down, conflict took place.  Multuggerah and his father united the tribes of the Lockyer Valley, the Scenic Rim, the Darling Downs and Upper Brisbane Valley. He took on some of the best and bravest of Queensland’s squattocracy.  This group of prominent men came to be known as the “pure Merinos”, the founding fathers of Queensland’s pastoral industry.   In the 1840s on the Darling Downs everybody would have known who Multuggerah was.  His opponents recognised his bravery and he was immortalised in the Poem by John Wilkes, “Raid of the Aborigines”.